and the winner is.....

Out of the three narratives, mike rose’s is the one that resonates the most with me.  His take is the perfect example of my views on the American education system.  To reiterate, I explained how I feel that the effects caused by the views of society have the most detrimental impact on lower income children.  Not only does it affect them on an educational level but also on an emotional and psychological level as well.  These factors enable a mindset in the children that it is ok to fail.  Luckily mike rose was able to wake up from this delusion with the help of ken Harvey and his statement of “I just wanna be average” (Rose-3).

Mike rose explains the situation even further by telling us that it is not only the social views, although that is the most prevalent reason, but also the normal changes that are taking place in a high school environment.  Things like puberty, new social dynamics, and the mix of religions and political views that come when a hodge-podge group of people are thrown together.  For the economically challenged or ethnically different, one of the answers to this challenge is to embrace the views that are thrust upon them and strive to emulate the views in a way that is harmful for them.

more stuff that i am going to put in my essay

Hello son, so you are our new sailor, yes?  Are you ready to kick ass and take names on one of the world’s finest and most devastating warships?  Be advised kid, we are here standing by to visit violence upon those who would wish our country harm.  I am not talking about some little missile that can take out a building; I am talking about missiles with the capability to level entire countries.  So are you ready to get your hands dirty and start doing what needs to be done to protect the 314,000,000 people of the United States of America?  Well not so fast, you may be all bright eyed and bushy tailed, but as it stands you are nothing but a N.U.B. or Non Useful Body.  You have a stack of qualification cards to complete before you can even think about doing anything useful for the ship.  Along with a bigger stack of qual cards to complete before you can start helping out your division.  When you first start out it will seem extremely overwhelming.  They throw so many tasks at you, then the next time they see you, they start ranting and raving about how they aren’t done yet.  Fear not little buddy, as long as you keep your feet to the deck plate and keep working on your quals, you will do just fine.  The following is an introduction to you qualification path along with some tips and methods I used while qualifying aboard this mighty warship.

the differences and similarities

The stories that Malcolm X, Benjamin Franklin, and Mike Rose wrote, are all educational narratives, as you well know.  What is important in them all is the motivation that led them to really pursue an education.  They all kind of drifted through life until a set of circumstances and choices enabled them to realize their inherent thirst for knowledge.  However each had very different motivation to pursue and education.

 Malcolm X started out on the streets.  As a hustler he was considered articulate, but he began to realize that in order to speak with the man that changed his life, Elijah Mohammed, he would need a more rounded education especially in the English department. He wanted to pass on the knowledge he gained from Elijah on to his fellow African Americans and the vocabulary of a street hustler just would not cut it for that task.  That being said I believe that Malcolm X’s motivation was the desire to help his people, a self-less desire to be admired.

Benjamin Franklin on the other hand started out with an innate desire to learn and had the opportunities to do so.  He came from a well to do family who continually tried to set him up for success.  It seems to me that he had a more selfish motivation though as referenced when he speaks of his rival.  This rivalry is between himself and john Collins and it was his desire to surpass john intellectually that I think was the real motivation behind his education.  This seems to be more for a personal gain than Malcolm’s desire to help others.

 Mike Rose is more along the line of Malcolm x.  He tells of the social/ economic struggle that is depicted in the story of Malcolm X as well as the intro where it tells us he is a proponent of uplifting those who are socially crippled based on their economic or ethnic backgrounds.  Unlike Malcolm however, mike first bows to the views of society in a manner that is detrimental to his education.  Then one auspicious moment changed his outlook on life and education.  Thanks to Ken Harvey and his statement of “I just wanna be average” (Rose-3).  He takes a slight Benjamin Franklinesque tone at this point and starts to learn for his own benefit.

how this blog is helping

So far I have not been taking advantage of the idea of blogging as put forth in this class.  The only time I have read my peers blogs was when I was asked to comment on them.  As far as my blog goes I am noticing that there are ways that I can improve my writing. Another aspect that I can see as helping me toward writing my first educational narrative is that I am getting a chance to read the narratives written by some of the most influential people in history.  From now on I will be more diligent in reading my classmates post in order to broaden my writing horizons.

my use of strategies.... or lack thereof

Seeing as the last class was the first time I have heard about these strategies, I cannot really say I have used any of them successfully in the past.  Sure I wrote some papers when I was in high school but that was 6 years ago and I cannot recall if there were any strategies involved.  The closest I can come is the paper I wrote about my views of the American education system.  Looking at it again I think it resembles an argumentative strategy but that was not really in my mind at the time.  When I write I do not think of strategies in the formal sense of this paper is going to be enumerative, or a cause/effect, or argumentative.  I just write.  I generally do not have a rough draft or any of the things that would probably make my paper that much better.  I start out with an idea and let it bounce around my head for a while until I come up with the general idea of the paper (There are no prewriting exercises at this point either).  I generally try to have an introductory paragraph that contains my main idea and the gist of the three supporting paragraphs which are to follow then a conclusion that restates my original idea with a mention of the supporting ideas.  Then as I write the paper just unfolds under my fingers.  Whether it turns out to resemble one of the strategies is either a subconscious thought or just luck.

mike rose

     Rose’s life in vocational education was basically an educational cesspit where the views of society played a bigger role in the success, or lack thereof, of the students than their own desires.  This ties back into my views on the American education system and the strength of the lower economy’s societal influence on their youth.  It seemed like his teachers did not care about their job.  They were just there to collect a paycheck.  I mean, according to their views, it was pointless to try to teach these young hoodlums wasn’t it? So why try?  Luckily I did not experience any teachers like that in my upbringing, except maybe that 8^th grade teacher.

     Voc. Ed. Affected the children in it in a manner that told them it was ok to be mediocre because that was all that was expected of them.  Again we go back to the idea that it is ok to fail.  Their intellect was never properly stimulated which stunted their educational growth as well as the emotional maturity that could have been realized.  Socially it offered them an excuse to personify the views thrust on them by others.  Seeing as Rose was never properly instructed in the use of math, he never learned the basic rules.  That lack of base knowledge is the reason that he had such a hard time catching up.

      High school is disorienting for students like ken Harvey because they not only have to first worry about the learning curve but also the views that are thrust upon them amid a tumult of hormones and bodily changes.  Not to mention the potential domestic disputes which may be taking place?  He copes with it by embracing the ideas that he is labeled with as his own.  Others may try to ignore them, prove them wrong, or even drop out and give up.  Either way the education of those students suffers.

      As this is my first class I do not really have any disorienting attributes to tell you of.  Maybe once I have taken a few more classes.

      My experience may be similar to Mike rose’s seeing as I basically said the same thing.  Or close enough at least. I think that the societal views of my economic group and the people I was surrounded by had the idea that it was ok to fail.  The same way that the kids in the handout were forced to adopt a persona that fit with what others thought of them.

an enumerative start to my narrative

Life in the navy is all about qualifications.  You are not allowed to do your job unless you have proven that you know the ins and outs of the task that you are to perform and the system that it is being performed on.  In order to prove that you have the requisite knowledge the navy uses a qualification system broken into specific watches that one would stand or more specifically a system that one would use.  The basic flow of a qual card is as follows:  references, prerequisites, knowledge factors, practical factors, test, and interviews.  When handed a new qual card the individual first looks at the references.  These references contain most of the knowledge needed to qualify that watch or system.  The prerequisites are simply there to ensure that an individual starts at the right level.  It would be pointless to start out at the top if you do not have the basic knowledge that is obtained from the lowest qualification.  The knowledge factors are the meat and potatoes of qualifying something.  An individual is required to memorize the components and procedures used to operate a system and further more must be able to explain, to a diagram level, the functional description of that system.  The practical factors are there to ensure that you can actually operate the system and not just talk about how it is operated.  I could explain to you how to do open heart surgery, but unless I have actually done it before my first time would likely result in the death of the patient.  The test is to ensure that you have retained the knowledge that you received throughout the qual process and the interview is for the supervisors to ascertain if the individual is actually ready to stand the watch.  All in all it is a lengthy process with a steep learning curve for those just starting out but it is an excellent way to understand how to do your job and provides the means for others to ensure that you are adequately trained to perform it satisfactorily.