Author Archives: Rob Joyce

Maybe its just me, but does anybody else think that a 35 year old learning morals and proper behavior from a 5 year old sound really wrong?  From reading the chapter, I dont understand how they could come to the conclusion that kindergarten helps provide morals for all families because the 4 year old who learns the morals from his teacher is going to go home and teach his family.  The idea of kindergarten should provide kids with a basic preparation period for the next level of their education, not teach their families what is a moral activity and what is not.  Another problem that I have with this idea is that if these kids are going to school without morals and living in homes where their parents have no morals, what are the chances that the morals being taught to the kids has a chance of staying with the child and not just being disregarded?  It seems to me that if the child is not given morals from the parents, then the chances of the child maintaining the morals in a home like this are very slim.

After reading chapter 7, I can’t help but wonder why many politicians and leaders we have had in this country have said that the diversity of the people in the United States is the reason why we are the most unique country in the world.  But diversity means that we have people that come from all different races, religions and other cultures, so if this is the case, then why did the United States government try to break these cultural ties and make all immigrants more “American”?  This sounds to me like we don’t know what is going on with our country.  I am a firm believer in the fact that cultural diversity is something that is extremely important in order for a society to grow and to prosper.  Without cultural diversity, we would not be able to understand the points of views of other people, and the United States government of the late 19th and early 20th century was doing, was basically destroying cultural diversity as we know it.  It tried to make all immigrants more “American”.  But what does that even mean? Does anybody know what it means to be an “American”?  I can tell you that I am completely sure what that means. The government should have embraced these immigrants and recognized that they could bring a whole new view point and new ideas to help make the United States grow and prosper, but that was not the case.

Another thing from the chapter that I thought was really interesting, because I don’t think I have ever heard of it before was how the African American community made its own schools, and the white people were not aware of them.  I think that this is incredible.  This shows an enormous sense of pride and cooperation by the black community to show care and value to a child’s education and the fact that they would go through the whole process of formulating these secret schools is astonishing to me.  It really makes me think, what if there were other races that had their own private schools, will we ever find out about them?  What were they taught? How do they compare to white schools?

After reading this chapter, I believe that the argument over what constitutes a good teacher is a prevailing conclusion of the reading.  The reading tries to persuade the reader that women are better teachers than men because women are naturally better at dealing with children than men are. But is this actually true? From natural society we know that children are born into families with a mother and a father, does this mean that children favor their mothers over their fathers, because the mother should better be able to deal with the children? I believe that the article would say that this is true.  I think that this article couldn not be more wrong that women are naturally better teachers than men.  I know personally that in my years of schooling, I have had some women teachers who were absolutely horrible, and some men teachers who I thought were excellent.  I believe that the only fair way to judge who a better teacher is, is by comparing their knowledge on the topic, and seeing how they are able to convey it to the individuals.  The stereotype that women are better is false in my opinion, its about who teaches the subject more effectively.  There is no doubt in my mind that there are many women teachers who are better qualified than men, but the same can be said about male teachers.  What it all boils down to is who teaches the topic more effective to the children.  That is how we should see who the beter teachers are.

After reading this chapter, I feel that I have gained even more knowledge on the history of segregation in the United States and also in the history of the world.  Throughout the history of the United States, there has always been at least one group of people that have been discriminated against, and everyone has had their turn.  Whether you are white, black, male or female, you have had your fair share of discrimination, but some have had more than others.  In the 235 year history of the United States the list of people discriminated against includes Indians, African Americans, women and some white males who are mostly European.  The Irish were the main white males discriminated against when they came to America after basically being pushed out of Ireland by the English.  So I don’t understand why everyone says that they are the only racial group or ethnic group that has been persecuted against in the United States because everyone has.

     I thought it was very interesting to read about how the African Americans desired to have segregated schools because they fought for so long to have joint schools and to end segregation.  After all of the lawsuits, murders, riots, activists, marches, over something that they had asked for, it doesn’t make any sense to me.  My main questions for this chapter are why would the African Americans ask for segregation and then fight for so long to have it repealed so many years later.  My other question is, has there ever been one group of people, in the history of the world who has not been discriminated against?

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After finishing the reading I still believe that all children need to be educated on moral values from an early age.  However, I do disagree with the belief that children should be educated on morals in school.  I believe that all children should receive moral education from their parents or religion, and not from school.  It is the responsibility of the parents, because the parents will be the ones who wil be with the children forever, not the school.  The school system can teach the children some basic morals like, don’t steal, and don’t kill, but the more in depth morals need to be instilled to the children by the parents.

I think that the idea of the common school is a great idea.  If all children are learning from the same textbooks, the same sets of questions, the same homework, then maybe the inequality that we have in our nation will decrease.  I know this is a stretch but since everything else has failed, why not try something new?  If all schools use the same books, then all schools are learning the exact same thing.  It can not be argued by parents or students that one school is better than the other, because no two schools are teaching different things.  This could be a very beneficial tool for the future of the education system, and I hope that this would cause the end of the educational inequality problem that we are dealing with today.