HW 39

Part A:

Questions:
1. How does your view of education vary or differ depending on the type of school you go to?
2. If we were not to learn certain types of math and replace it with something more meaningful how would it affect our lives after high school?
3. Why must we go to school for so long when 70-80 years ago people stopped at very young ages, and still ending up doing well in life?

Ideas:
1. Bloomberg sees us all as numbers both grade wise and $ wise.
2. By not constantly taking tests at SOF whenever we do take tests it feels as if it is another language.
3. Teachers constantly say that by doing exhibitions it will help us greatly in college.

Experiences:
1. I find myself often getting into arguments with one of my friends who goes to private school because I feel like she is very closed minded. Maybe not intentionally but I believe the structure of her school makes her that way.
2. I have met kids who go to private school who are embarrassed that they do.
3. In a lot of my classes I find myself checking the clock every 3 minutes to see when the class will be over.


Part B:

I am going to use something from The Cool Unit that I think has a relation to the school unit. I interviewed two of my very good friends, one of them goes to a private school and the other one goes to a public school very much like this one. Just from having conversations with them I can tell the difference is so strong. The friend from private school seems so close-minded about all of her ideas. I constantly find us bickering because I don’t understand how someone could not think about situations from different points of view. I asked to describe her school in the interview and this is what she said: “Um, I go to an all girls school, there are around 50 girls in my grade. We all know each other really well. The workload is crazy. Most of the girls live in the neighborhood of the school, a couple live in Westchester or like Brooklyn. Some girls party a lot while some girls don’t do anything at all. There aren't really cliques if there is any exclusion it’s between two people not a whole bunch of people. There are of course groups of friends but they aren’t really exclusive.” From this it doesn’t really seem like her philosophy is that bizarre but from personal experience it is very hard to relate to her. I think she has grown up in a very sheltered home and a very sheltered school. She doesn’t experience very much diversity and it shows in her opinions. I have a feeling though that the lifestyle she leads now isn’t going to change much when she becomes an adult. She has said to me that most girls at her school are expected to get into Ivy League Schools and continue on this cycle of I guess being better than everyone else. Considering the fact we spend so much time at school, I really think it does take an affect on who we are as people.

Now in comparison to my friend who goes to a school very much like SOF, her views as a person are much more down to earth. She is more aware of her surroundings and has a better understanding in my opinion of what life is going to be like as she gets older. Although she goes to a good school and has good parents she isn’t trapped in an illusion of how her life is going to be. I feel as if a lot of my private school friends have their whole life’s already mapped out and handed to them, and although it is not to say people that go to public school are not like that all I feel like they have a better understanding of what they really want. In my interview of her she described her school as the following: “My school is very liberal. It’s not like a lot of other public schools because we don’t take regents, its very stressful. It’s a very creative school; people are into music, art and history. It is a medium sized school, 300 kids per grade. Most of the kids live in Park Slope, Brooklyn and the Upper West Side. Most of the people that attend have known each other their whole lives. Kids are really into getting their messages out to others about different cultural and social concerns. Most of the kids at my school party…like everyone actually. There aren’t that many cliques but there are big groups of friends that never leave each other and everyone else just falls wherever.”
A line that struck me was “Kids are really into getting their messages out to others about different cultural and social concerns.” Maybe it is to say that have more of a choice to believe whatever they want to and are not concerned about fitting a certain arc type. It seems like living a care free meaningful life is more important than being the best or having large salary.