Education and Power

Ruben Carter-Alford

Professor Melendez

English 110

9/17/12

What really needs to be accomplished when attending college? I currently am attending Santa Barbara City College and I believe the reason why I am going to school is for one sole purpose, which is to figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life, and to be successful at what ever I choose to do. So what is success is it just cheating off someone’s paper and getting an A and ultimately cheating your way through school, or is it putting hours upon hours for studying and when it is test time knowing every single answer. Now that is success. In the article “ learning the key of life” Jon Spayde argues that “ the whole world’s a classroom, and to really make it one, the first thing is to believe it is” (par.16). What Spayde means is that something is learned every day even if it is the smallest thing from tying your shoes to learning how to write a six-page essay in MLA format? College is not about just sliding through with ease it is about finding ones purpose in life, and how they can affect the future in a positive way. There are awesome students in this world who give there all to become successful, who study every night and who do their homework on a consistent basis. Then there are those who cheat there way through school and don’t learn the necessary work needed to pass their classes. A cheater would be lucky to get away with it through their school lives and if they did they would be unable to partake in society. In Mark Clayton’s article “ there is a whole lot of cheating going on” he explains the rising increases of cheating going on worldwide. Clayton evaluates that “ students say time and workload pressure are major factors spurring academic dishonesty, followed by parental pressure”(Par.19). Students answer to this cheating, is often a lack of parent support and to easy of an access to the Internet. More and more students are starting to rely on other people work then their own so the lack of success is showing up in college graduates. Lifetime lessons lifetime experiences and lifetime goals, are what gives each individual on earth a purpose as well as something not only to strive for but something to also look forward to in their future. The idea of class has changed through out the decades; class was defined to be having the biggest belly and the palest skin. In the present, class is determined by having a higher education, and fulfilling their purpose and using that education for the good of the society. The difference of how education is being taught is very diverse in the fact that one professor may teach a class with just a huge lecture and assume that all the students are paying attention to him and to what he is saying, while other professors teach tier class with more of a hands on matter to get all the students involved and interested in what they are learning. In the article “ Learning the Key of Life” Spayde describes how “Talking about education is the closest we get to talking about class; and know wonder education, like class, is about power”(par.6). This quotation is explaining how class as well as education can be formed into power because a person with a high education usually has more money and with more money comes more power. For instance someone with less of an education will struggle to find a high paid job and a job that they would enjoy, but someone with credentials will have a much easier time find a steady job that pays well as well as a job that will bring them happiness on a daily basis. Money is the mind of most people, schools and business around the U.S it is a shame how the world revolves around the greed of man. College athletes and sports programs are often persuaded to buy and use equipment from high advertised companies in order help spread the use of that specific item or service, just because of how much money they are offering to that school not because its in the better interest of the athletes. In the article “football is a suckers game” Michael Sokolove highly values the importance for colleges to obey by the rules and attempt to keep their ethics and moral strong in order to fight the money problems that are causing pay cuts to sports teams around the country. Sokolove determines that “the endemic criminal and ethical scandals of college of college sports are connected to the straight line to the money”(par.15). In his piece he also explains how lower division players are being affected by the same problem because of the money shortages school wide. Also while athletes often miss their classes due to being too tired from practice or just not wanting to go because of their ego, they often find themselves not having much success in class. Considering the fact that school are plummeting in there own failure there are still scholar athletes who are doing the right thing to help their school in which they are often recognized for. While men are struggling to go to class and actually participating in that class, girls are starting to be on top of success in the classroom. They are also the majority in the higher educated schools and classes. Although men have better SAT scores in history and in science when it comes to English and essay writing men are at the bottom of the chain, and aren’t getting better anytime soon. Girls are stepping it up in the science and history realm though; they are catching up quick to the national averages and are taking control of most school related curriculum. The admission for colleges show that women are topping the charts with 8.4 million compared to the boys admission of 6.7 million, women are also suppose to make that number larger in the recent years to come. Explained in the article “ the war against boys” Christina Sommers argues, “ several recent studies have shown that far from being shy and demoralized, today’s girls outshine the boys”(Par.6). There was a student from Scarsdale high school who did a presentation and stated that the difference between girls grades and boys grades were quit similar in the higher paced classes. In the average classes girls were on top by far. She also interprets other qualities that girls do better then guys but not all are great. Girls aren’t perfect, as they seem they are most likely to become depressed and attempt to commit suicide even though they fail most of the time. Both women and men are likely to go to college now adays but never used to be that good back in 1960 there were 20 percent less people going to a higher education of college. Also now girls take up 57 percent of under grads and are only rising it is suppose to get to at least 60/40. In socity now and how it has always been there is a greater chance of a male to get a job right out of college compared to a girl. In the article “girls versus boys” Katha Pollitt explains the difference between male and female in the work place and how each sex has very different difficulties trying to find a job. She also argues that “ for most students its like trade school- they go to get their credentials for employment and, because of the sexist nature of the labor market, women need more credentials then men”(par.5). there are many other different points made in this piece, like talking about sexual discrimination towards women and how boys parents are getting mad that there are more and more elementary teachers that are women and they are made to read books about women as well. Colleges need to start kicking it into gear about the lack of sustainability with their students. Things need to change fast with all of the chaos happening on college campuses like their morals and ethics have completely changed thrught the years in a bad way.