Reading Response #6

5/16/2010

Cai Pencil

Reading Response # 6

In a article published in The Atlantic Magazine titled “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower”, Professor X, a part time English Teacher, claims that as the modern economy requires an education, people have “social optimism in a large scale, the sense of college as both a universal right and need, financial necessity on the part of colleges and students alike, the desire to maintain high academic standards while admitting marginal students”. The “marginal students” are being misplaced and or was ill prepared in previous education and remain uninterested because it is a requirement for the degree they want to gain financially in their career and there for a high 9 of 15 fail X’s English 101 and 102 class. The school staff doesn’t seem to mention anything about this progress report pattern to Professor X. This seems to me that this failure rate is becoming the norm and is expected or maybe just that this particular staff does not care too much for student success. So even with social optimism to have college available to everyone while maintaining a “high academic standard” most people just seem uncommitted, uninterested, and undereducated.
I myself was extremely uninterested in education or even obtaining a degree or certificate for years after high school, but never the less very interested now at the age of 22. Even though I am going to school to obtain a technical degree in Instrumentation and Control, I still am quite interested in further education, I just figured I might as well choose a stable career to receive financial stability so I can have a rewarding career and have the financial ability to further educate myself which I hope will extend well past my technical degree. I personally believe that it is your current goals in life that determines if you are more or less interested in education. I only have explored my academic interest in the recent years after what I realized has to change in this world and in my own life to succeed personally and as a whole with the world. The need for everyone to contribute their cognitive power gained through experience and education is what we need in order to figure out a restructuring of basic functions in society which has destroyed the earth in recent generations. And this would be my personal reason in my interest in education. This still does not mean that other people will be as interested at all. As far as placement goes, I have to agree that most people are being misplaced in these classes, the reason how I’m not so sure of. It might be possible that their scores in previous education was sufficient, but their current state of being inactive in education may contribute the underachievement of X’s students. If it was not for my recent interest in education and the fact that I have read several college level books and text books in recent years, I probably would not have placed as high as I did (not that it was that high). So after my answer in my own reason for my interest in education, and my personal experience of taking a placement test and the recent academics that allowed me to place in this class, it brings me to agree with X’s complaint of students that the lack of commitment, interest, and education because they are just there to drive their financial success.