Katie Palmer Essays - Education, Educational Psychology,

Katie Palmer English comp 1 Autobiography 23 February 2015 Responding to the Lives of Others I have never been the type to just believe the first thing I hear. I have to experience things first hand for me to believe that something may be right. After reading two essay s in my Mercury R eader about the education system and the different ways students are learning things, I strongly agree with them because they are talking about situations and experiences that I have been through myself . The first essay was "School vs. Education " by Russell Baker, orig inally published in 1975 and the second essay was " The Case against College" by Caroline Bird , which was also published in 1975. The title "School vs. Education" fits perfectly with the essay. Baker's question without being officially asked in words is "Is school educating?" His answer is, no. According to Baker school is not worth very much, if anything. He believes that you learn most of what you know when you are not in school yet, so by the age of six. Such as life skills on how to do things in the real world, whether they are the positive things or even the negative things. For example, Baker talks about how television will teach the child how to pick a lock, do laundry , kill people, commit a robbery . And from parents, we learn how to use certain words, maybe smoke, or simply bake a cake. And this is considered the first stage of education and the more important stage. The second stage of education will occur in the actual classroom. During this stage is when the student will learn if they are the dumb child or the smart child. Teachers are doing this by demanding more or less out of different students. When the students that think they are the dumb ones they will soon fail and get left behind. The "smart" ones will continue to stay on track and get geared up for a college they will joyously attend to. "If the point of lower education was to get into college, what is the point of college? The answer is soon learned. The point of college is to prepare the student no longer a child now to get into graduate school." (Baker, 468) I agree with the things said in this essay because there are some things that I have experienced myself and have seen happen through other people that I know. I agree 100% with the statement that children learn most of what they know outside of the classroom from the television, their parents, and friends that are around them whether they be good or bad habits. A lot of the things you learn outside of school will determine how you take things in when being taught by actual teachers. My parents taught me respect at home towards adults and that helped me a lot because teachers will be willing to help you when you are struggling with something . But as far as the students that learn how to cuss and are not taught how to be respectful will most likely become of the students that are classified as the dumb child at a early age which will carry on through grade school then to college, if you make it that far. Caroline Bird's e ssay "The Case against College" is about people thinking that college has to be the very next step in life as soon as you step out of high school, which is not always the best option for some students. Bird argues that more than half of the students that attend college after high school are doing so just because they are expected to attend. The ones that go to college for that reason and not for themselves are the ones that will drop out and become in debt with millions of bills to pay. Bird states that if you are one of those students that actually enjoy doing school work like typing papers, spending nights studying and learning different things then college will be the right choice for you coming out of high school. But majority of high school