Persuasions: Identities, Stereotypes, & Fights

First off, I really enjoyed this debate seeing that education is among one of my favorite topics to discuss. However, attending this debate further made me realize how useless it is to debate, and that it doesn’t contribute to the general welfare of knowledge. What I saw was room full of people rooting for either Anya, or Siva. Personally, I thought both candidates were great and fairly concise in their judgment on education. The thing that shocked me in between the two is the fact that there own arguments possessed extreme amounts of similarity. For example, Anya’s idea of “Informal Education”, is essentially the same as Siva’s “Anarchistic Communities”. From what I got, Anya’s idea of “Informal Education” consisted of an education that is “Cut out for the real world”, or a liberal education. Siva’s “Anarchistic Communities” shared the same idea accept he utilized the notion that it was “Not controlled”. Essentially, they were just arguing over the fact that one was better than the other when they both were the same thing.

Something else interesting that Siva mentioned was a quote from Karl Marx that stuck in my head. “Everything is contingent, and everything is up to us”. I really like this quote because I think that it is very relative to us. Although Karl Marx is considered radical for his ideas, he has a point here; Education is contingent upon us! This could seem a little arbitrary but it’s true!

Something else that stood out to me was when a questioner referred to Paulo Friere and spoke about Market Fundamentalism and educational Fundamentalism. It seems a little clear now, but I would still like someone to clarify this and how it relates to education.

In the end, something I observed was that the moderator said “Lets have a Reflection”. I immediately thought about Jean Twenge because the moderator was trying to make the crowd feel good after that African American woman harshly sullied Siva. Lol =)

When I first walked into the debate, I wasn’t sure of what to expect from a debate for higher education. After walking out, I still didn’t feel it was really a debate so much as a discussion. Anya mentioned right off the bat, that she wasn’t here to discuss the future of higher education and that she believed the students always had to come first. Anya and Siva became more focused on the issue of whether or not higher education is a benefit to students. I noticed that they never seemed to take things that far, they would make a several points and agree with each other and only disagree with each other occasionally. However, I think the two of them did get heated up maybe two or three times during the debate.

I found the debate between the two of them very interesting because I felt that Siva was more of a professional speaker while Anya was more of a ideological one. I felt Anya had the passion of socialists, while Siva relied on his evidence. I didn’t disagree with either of them, I feel that they both had very strong points to make. My thoughts on the matter were spoken by one of the audience members. Although I don’t remember his name, I remember that he said he believed that both their methods would eventually be applied to schools. I also agreed with the statement that most students who attend college do so for a higher degree and pay, and not purely educational reasons.

I entered the room thinking “o man here’s another one of these boring baruch events, how am I going to sit through this.”  I was wrong.  The two people on the panel Siva and Anya were extremely insightful and had a genuine aspect to both there personalities.  They didn’t say how everything is fine and dandy both Siva and Anya spoke the truth.  That education is declining in comparison to the cost of it.  We spend thousands of dollars on an education when we could be at the library 5 days a week teaching it to ourselves.  I became interested towards 2 people who spoke during the debate.  The guy who said how his child had ADHD and that he has to pay 60,000$ a year for a special college that his meets his child’s needs.  Siva did agree that there aren’t enough colleges focusing on the special needs of kids and since there are so few the price of them rises.  There should be more colleges that tend to the needs of special kids.  I highly doubt that the father has enough money to pay 60,000 $ a year without taking loans and struggling finiancially.  

The most interesting person to me was the black lady(sorry I didn’t catch her name).  She spoke about how the education system didn’t suit “colored people”.  I felt as if she said this because this was her last stand.  The lady said she resignated this past year from teaching and that she felt “she has chains on her”.  Seriously lady come on your going to use the race card.  The education system isn’t biased towards one group of people.  You take the SAT’s to get into college.  Every high school student whether white, black, asian, or hispanic has to take the test and answer the same questions.  How is the education system bias we have white teachers, asian teachers, hispanic teachers, and black teachers.  If this lady is able to say “the education system isn’t suitable for colored people” why can’t other people say when they get bad grades “the education system isn’t suitable for asian people”.  Her argument had no validity and she was ranting on with no point or goal.  To me I feel as if she had some issues she wanted to get off her chest and this was the right time to do it in front of this many people and when the topic was related to hers.

The only thing I didn’t like about the event is when they turned the lights on randomly.  It hurt my eyes a lot.  Other than that the debate was nice. =)

To start off, I really enjoyed watching the episode of Daria and everyone’s videos in English today! All the videos were really different from each other in production and style, and I liked the background music of each one a lot. But moving onto the debate, I really don’t know what I was expecting from it, but it certainly was interesting. Like Vicky, the fact that Anya was the only woman on the podium piqued my interest. From what I gathered, Anya was on a side where she believed that you don’t necessarily need to be in a lecture hall setting with a professor lecturing or in a classroom discussion to be learning. One thing she mentioned that stood out to me was the site LinkedIn, where I think she was trying to argue that people would use and learn from the information posted there, and post there themselves. She pointed out that ideas and creative discussions can happen anywhere, not just inside a classroom. Siva, on the other hand, believed in the classroom setting and in a “tried and true” way of learning and teaching. I actually didn’t find myself agreeing entirely with either one of them, but I felt that Siva did present himself and his ideas in a more calm and composed way. I feel like at times, Anya lost her cool and became sort unreasonable in her answers, if that  makes any sense.

Props to the woman who pointed out that not everyone could understand everything people said (i.e. the undergrads), who I now know is Professor Gaunt after reading Vicky’s post. She made good points, but I just can’t help remembering that before she spoke into the microphone, I made eye contact with her at one point when she was on the line and smiled, but I didn’t think she’d say anything remotely close to what she actually said. But after she spoke, all I could think was “Damn, she’s fierce!”.

Overall, I enjoyed the debate and I loved the fact that there were so many people passionate about this topic and asked really thought invoking questions. 🙂

English class was particularly fun, mostly because we watched an episode of Daria and then our digital essays. I would like to make a comment to Deon and what he said about Mattel; they have over 30,000 employees worldwide, not 5,000. I knew there was something wrong with that number. Anyway, I thought the videos we all made were great.

On a much different note, the debate was much more interesting than I thought it would be. I have to say that I did not like Anya as much as I thought I would when she started talking. At first, I was intrigued that she was the only woman on stage. However, when she began debating her ideals, I realized that not only did I not agree with what she said but I didn’t like the way she said it. While answering questions, she gave off an attitude and was not very well-spoken. She used a lot of “likes” and “uhms” and gave off a very womanly attitude. I do not believe in double standards, however Siva was so much more well-spoken than she was and I believe it was because of her attitude. Siva also seemed a little full of himself, with a “cover charge higher than Barbara Streishand.”

The best part of the debate, and I know the rest of our LC will agree with me, was Professor Gaunt. (I believe that’s how you spell her name. I’m too lazy to check her card.) She was right. I didn’t find myself truly interested in the debate because it didn’t relate to me. There were only so many points that Anya and Siva made that I actually remember but this professor “of color” opened a can of “whoop ass” as Professor Kaufman said. (She teaches classes on anthropology and racism only on Thursday from 6-8 in case anyone is interested.)

Higher education is getting more expensive and according to Siva, they’re expected to do worse because it’s more economical. My boyfriend mentioned to me today that he wants to transfer to NYU. My personal opinion is that it just isn’t worth it. They are destroying the city with their plans for skyscrapers and unnecessary facilities. They are an extremely expensive university with the same education as Baruch.

All in all, I found the debate to be much more interesting than I had expected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw4SUb2bZbg

This is the link to my video.  Greatness isn’t achieved easily. =D

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9JTsqZC99s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCL0IOPHwaU
sorry i have no idea how to embed right now ><