I always scout new
ways to despise school systems. Most people I know, that know me, say that I am
extremely pessimistic. Whether it’s uniforms, being taught useless information,
or teachers being selfish and irrational, I always sniff it out.
Recently, due to
reading for my English lessons, I have discovered another factor. Even though
it is as much cultural, as it is the schools, I will focus on the school part. Teachers,
students and even the subjects themselves shove you into, nice, little boxes. You
shall be an engineer, because you’re good at math’s. Another shall be a teacher,
because they average in most subjects. Students with east-Asian ethnicity, are
stereotyped into mathematical subjects. Those with below-average grades, become
recommended as “hard working laborers”. While there is nothing wrong with this,
and it might be true, I don’t acknowledge that students’ futures are decided
within 6-8 years of their first class. From the first bell they are taught how
to neatly follow orders, and flow into the community. Its also been proven that
students who wear uniforms, question new “orders” less. You must conform to the
system, so you can be placed in a nice, little box. I have dubbed them, the dream
killing boxes.
Obviously its vital
you concentrate, towards what you excel at and hone those skills. However, that
shouldn’t shadow your desires and passion. When my aunt was 16, she needed to select
her future. 5 out of 6 of her teachers, told her to become an engineer, due to her
skills in mathematics. The final professor told her to choose whatever she
wanted, which was to become a midwife. She was told it was impossible, by her
peers, teachers, and her mother. Now she has been working as a midwife for 7
years. She did it, because she wanted to, but also to prove everyone wrong. It required
3 additional years of studying, along with community and service work, but she
was accepted. Of course, it’s different for all countries, but I’m focusing on
school and human rights of choice.
Personally, I
believe the school shouldn’t advise students towards future workplaces. I respect
the efforts to hone the students’ talents, and to provide insight to the modern
world. However, students must decide their passion themselves. Some say they
should wake up to the real world. I refrain from caring. But if I must provide
a slither of positiveness. It would be, to let them dream outside the box a
little longer.
I like how your opinion column topic is slightly different to the topics in 'Mother Tongue'. Your blog post met the conventions required to construct an opinion column as you provided voice as you spoke about the disagreement of a child's future being determined at a young age "I don't acknowledge that students' futures are decided within 6-8 years of their first class." You also used hard facts to entice your reader by saying something that is very valid to your topic "It has also been proven that students who wear uniforms, question new "orders" less". I definitely agree with your point about disliking school and i'm sure many people can relate to it. I think you can improve by reading through your work when you are finished writing just to go over any grammatical errors. But i enjoyed the way you spoke about your topic!
ReplyDeleteGood job, Frederik! Your pessimistic outlook on school was quite interesting!
ReplyDeleteI believe the strongest aspect of opinion columns in yours was your unique "voice". Not many have the courage or guts to write and publish an article (or rather opinion column) that criticizes the way schools function, as it seen as a taboo topic, due to the fact that the person could be seen as uneducated. Additionally, your way of comparing occupations/jobs to "dream killing boxes", as you have dubbed them, was an unusual take on how school categorizes students, but nonetheless an enjoyable one.
The second use of opinion column conventions that I particularly looked at, was your use of "acknowledging [the] counter-argument". You use it when you state "Obviously its vital you concentrate, towards what you excel at and hone those skills", and I couldn't agree more. You then proceed to connect that statement to your aunt's story. It is good to concentrate in school, but it is best to concentrate more on your passions, which is I think was your point.
The third most prominent convention that you use, in my opinion (see what I did there?), is "newsworthy". This will be quite brief since there is not much to say or write about. The way schools function and are structured are topics that are widely discussed and argues about all around the globe, so obviously your opinion column would fall in the "newsworthy" section (especially since we recently started school).
My first comment on your opinion column would be about your aunt's story, which I found quite intriguing to read about. In order to emphasis on your theme and 'message', you used a real-life and personal example. The example representing how you might be good at something doesn't necessarily mean you have to enjoy it, which is something that has to be communicated to authoritative figures (such as teachers), as so they can teach their disciplines on their passion rather than their skill. If that makes sense...
Secondly, I wanted to comment on your aunt (again). Well, rather more about her case. She became a midwife because not only she wanted to, but also to prove 'everyone wrong'. And this made me think of the topic/concept to "prove people wrong"; do you believe that a person can live a life of spite? To elaborate, you live your life in rebellion, or rather to prove everyone wrong.
And improvement that I suggest you should look at, which I had actually told our classmate, Outh, about, is citing your source. Like I said with him, in order for an opinion column to be credible and to avoid skepticism, you must not only give "hard facts", but also to reference the source. Plus, the reader could be interested to research the topic/data.
This response communicated a genuine response to Amy Tan’s personal essay Mother Tongue. With that in mind, it did not effectively recreate the conventions of the assigned text type. This type of assigned blog post requires you to show more nuance and sensitivity to the specific text type you are trying to replicate. Although you included a hook in your intro and some element of call to action in your conclusion, there was little attention to the conventions of an opinion column. Moving forward, try to rely less on (or at least distance yourself) from personal response and focus more on imagining yourself as a character writing a text to be published in a real newspaper. Good job maintain a unique voice that was not overly academic.
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