Paper #3 Year Round School

Year Round School

            If we went back in time we would see that the school year wasn’t year round. There was a summer break that lasted two to three months so that the kids could help working on the farm. The kids don’t help working on the farm now, so why don’t we have year round school. Many other places have year round school and it goes great. As we saw in Dead Poets Society they went to school year round and they were very well behaved students. They had to follow all the rules on a daily basis. Having year round attendance would be very good in K-12 education because, it would produce better people in society, it would keep kids out of trouble, and kids would gain an understanding of hard work.

            Year round education would produce better people in society because they would be learning a lot more. The kids don’t learn enough going to school for only nine months. The kids need to learn more so that they can make it through life better. Now a days there are a lot of kids that can’t even read or write. Those kids that can’t read and write don’t do anything with their lives because they can’t, they don’t know how to. But going to school year round there would be a lot more time to work with those kids that can’t read and write. The parents and teachers need to make school interesting enough so that the kids will go year round. It has to be interesting enough so that the smart kids and the challenged kids will want to learn. The whole reason with going year round is to produce a lot more people that can at least read, write and do mathematics. You need those basic skills to do almost every job out in the real world.  Going to school year round we have a lot better chance of producing a lot more people that are ready for society.

            Going to school year round would help keep the kids from getting into trouble. As we saw in Dead Poets Society, because they followed all the rules they were able to stay out of trouble. Another problem with not going year round is that parents have a hard time finding things for their kids to do over the long summer, and they can’t take the whole summer off of work, so they end up having to pay someone or someplace to watch their kids. If school went year round there would be regular school as well as after school activities to keep the kids out of trouble. There would also be sports to keep the kids out of trouble. Going to school year round might also keep kids out of gangs a little more. Like we saw in Dead Poets Society that there were no gangs of any type. Without having year round school there isn’t enough summer activities to keep all ages out of trouble. Not all the summer activities are for all ages. There are a lot of summer activities that are just for certain ages. Plus summer activities don’t last all summer long. They just last for a few weeks or a few days. So, having the long summer off is just asking for trouble.

            Another reason for having year round school is so that the kids can gain an understanding of hard work. Like in Dead Poets Society we see them work very hard to get where they wanted to be. In today’s world, so many people, especially kids, expect to have things handed to them. They don’t think they have to work for anything, and that is just not true. If you want anything in life you must work very hard to get it, sometimes harder than other times. The young people today think that there is no reason to work hard. However,  if you want to get somewhere in life, and be able to support a family, you must work very hard to get there. It doesn’t just come to you, it has to be worked on. Going to school year round we show the kids that if they work hard they will be able to do something with their life. Like we see in Stand and Deliver, when Mr. Escalante is teaching them calculus, they see that if they work hard they succeed. Maybe we should show some of these movies in classes so that they can see success. Maybe they would be inspirational enough that they would start working really hard so that they too can succeed. There has got to be things like that that we can do to make going to school year round better for the kids.

            Hopefully the kids would see that it would be good for them to go to school year round. Hopefully they wouldn’t think that we, as parents were just trying to torture them. Overall, with all the good reasons to go to school year round that is what we should be doing. It should not be an option for them to do. It should be something that everyone has to do. They can do so much better in life when going to school year round. And if they are worried about a summer break or winter break, they still get to have breaks, just not as long as they are right now. Overall, there are so many good reasons to go to school year round. We would have young adults that come out of school ready for the real world. They are ready to succeed even more than they did in year round school. Plus our kids aren’t dying because they aren’t getting into trouble. And they have learned that it is something that is important to work hard. So, overall going to school year round is the right thing to do.

John Gatto "Against School"

I would have to disagree with John Gatto. I think that school is very important. There is so much you can't do without an education. Now a days you can't get any kind of job without some type of education. Most jobs you need to have major degrees to get. You even have to have graduated from high school. Having a GED now isn't enough anymore.
I understand that some kids get bored with school. That's fine, instead of saying there should be no school we should make it more interesting for kids at school. We should push them in what they do. Make them challenge themselves. We should have special programs not only for the students that need extra help but there should be a program for students that move at a faster pace then most of the students. If that means that we need more teachers than that is what we do.
Okay, so there were several people in the old days that didn't go to school and did very well for themselves. Well, it isn't the old days anymore. It's nothing lilke it used to be. Now it is very important to have an educatiion. Why things have changed so much, I don't know but they have. I'm sure that if we put our heads together we could come up with many ways to make school not so boring for some students. Because it isn't boring for everyone, just a few in each class. So, I have to say that it would be better to come up with new programs than to just not have school. I don't see how we could get away with not having school.

Michael Moore "Idiot Nation"

I have to start off by saying that I agree with Michael Moore in many ways. First of all, why do our teacher make so little money. We are producing idiots because there aren't enough teachers that care to teach the students. No one wants to be a teacher because they don't make enough money and schools don't have enough money to keep things running. We shouldn't have to recruit from different countries for teachers. We should be able to find our own teachers right here in our country. If teachers just got paid more money we would have more teachers that cared about the students and weather they were learning or not. Why in the world do we start the school year off with no one running the school and in so many schools. Schools must have a principle to run them. Again, if they were paid more money we might have more people willing to do the job.
Now, why do we have to get money from big businesses to help run our schools. Schools are important enough that they should get money from the government to keep running. We shouldn't have to make deals with Coke or Pepsi so that we get money from them. Our kids shouldn't be drinking so much soda, it isn't good for you. Some of the big businesses that we get money from are because of good things that the parents are doing or things that the schools are doing. I know my son has me collect the box tops for school. I think that is great, but getting money for drinking so  much soda is not a good thing at all.
Why are some schools allowing marketing research going on in classroom. There should be no such thing going on. Mail the research to people's home, don't come to our schools and take our learning time with something stupid like market research.

Questions about Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante

1.What did Mr. Escalante think education should do?
    He thought that it should push the kids to do their very best. It should push them beyond the usual classroom   work. It should push them beyond what they think that they can do.
2. What did Mr. Escalante's colleagues think education should do?
    The other teachers thought that they should just have to teach the basics and not go any beyond that. The other teachers didn't think the students could be pushed beyond their ability.
3. What did Mr.Keating think education should do?
    He thought that education should teach the basics but also teach about life.
4. What did Mr. Keating's colleagues think education should do?
     His colleagues thought that education should teach the basics and rule and regulations.
5. What do you think your favorite teacher thought education should do?
    He thought that education should teach us what we need to know for our futures. In education as well as life.
6. What do you think your worst teacher thought education should do?
     She thought that she just had to teach the basics and that is it. She didn't have to do any more than that.