Blog 7: Reflection on Finn's "A Distinctly Un-American Idea"

 Finn's "A Distinctly Un-American Idea" made me reflect on my own schooling career in my hometown public school circuit. I came from a middle class school system where everything that was taught to me came from a book. Everything that was in the book was not to be questioned as it was just the way that it was taught. The people who taught me were mostly teachers who went to that same school when they were my age. The buildings were the same and the way we learned had only been improved by the edition of the textbooks we learning out of. Education was logical, analytical, and matter of fact. I stayed away from creativity because it had little to do with what I was learning in the classroom.

My education was what I could make of it. Instructed by my teachers that it was the way I would find success in life I was encouraged to put my nose down in a book and work until I was able to achieve my goals and go to a good college. My parents who went to the same schools as me when they were kids had the same education style enforced these values within my life so that I would idealize my education as a tool for me to be able to achieve whatever I wanted in my life because education is the "great equalizer" within our society. I found great achievement with that mindset.

When we talked in class about our schooling experiences it became aware to me that maybe that my education created this role for me in my life. My schooling had created my priorities in my life and I sit in my college classroom learning about the new approaches and ideals I find myself reluctant to accept these new creative ways of education. They are unfamiliar to me and they are not what I was raised with. However after our discussion I realize it is my school that has made me like this. I abhor creative approaches and have always found myself more fond of lectures rather than formulating personal opinions. The placement I am in now is similar to the ones my parents were in before me and its the same from my peers. Our schooling creates a cycle that has been created for us since the day we were born into our families. 

So now what, how do we break these cycles? I think the first step of doing this comes by questioning the whole system itself and observing the compliant behaviors to how we got ourselves here. How can we create change in a system that were born to play a predestined role? I think it starts with questioning everything. Seven Solutions for Education Inequality provides some ways we can start to shift the tide from a lower/working class perspective.