Final Paper

Dane Bohlmann
English 101- paper #3
Critiquing Education


Teaching is one of the most under appreciated professions in America. Not only do teachers have to deal with long hours, terrible pay and hardwork but also students who would rather be anywhere but in the classroom. Mike Akel started his movie “Chalk” with the alarming statistic that 50% of all teachers quit within the first 3 years of when they start their career. It’s very likely to see classrooms with students who stare blankly at what they’re doing and act like bored prisoners just serving their time. In order to motivate students and teach them lessons that can be used both inside and outside of the classroom, Teachers must teach the right accountability standards.

In Davis Guggenheim’s film “Waiting for Superman” it becomes clear that America’s school districts are failing. Public education is the only option for most kids and it is not fair that it is not doing its part. Education is a kids way out of a bad environment. Children make predictions about life from their environments so the children growing up in poverty and unsafe communities don’t see much good. The alarming thing is that not only are inner-city schools doing poor, but also suburban schools are suffering. Quality education has been a problem that most presidents have addressed but despite this national attention and doubling spending on students our math and reading scores have nearly stayed the same since 1971. Teachers need to be held accountable for what their jobs are, and that is to get their students ready for the next educational step. Tenure, guarantees the teacher their job for life after a certain number of years, has kept teachers who should not be able to educate children in a school district. Once a teacher has received tenure it is nearly impossible to fire him or her even if they are not adequate teachers. In fact, any school that would like to get rid of a bad teacher have to go through a thick packet of papers and forms and turn everything in on time to meet deadlines. If the deadline isn’t reached the papers have to be turned in next school year. Only 1 in 2500 teachers actually get fired. Teachers would have the incentive to be a better teacher and make their students learn if they could receive a ‘good teacher’ bonus but unfortunately teacher unions forbid it. Every year it costs New York an outstanding 100 million dollars a year just to retrain bad teachers. Imagine what that money could do if those teachers were just relieved of their jobs and new, better teachers replaced them. We live in an ever-changing society and the problem is we are still using strategies to teach that worked 50 years ago but are no longer relevant and effective now. Our schools haven’t changed but the world has.

There are certain trait’s a teacher should have in order to be effective. Everyday a teacher will be tested, whether it is by a disruptive student or slow learner but they need to stay patient. If a student knows you are really working to help them learn the information they are more likely to put forth an effort.  If a teacher balances their time between each student students will get the idea that one truly does care and isn’t just trying to toss out information without it sinking in. In order for a teacher to gain respect from their students, they must first give each student the respect they deserve no matter who they are or how they act. Most students have the mindset that their teachers are out to get them and trying to ruin their lives but once a teacher gains the respect of their students their notion of teachers would change allowing them to be more open to being taught. The most important trait a good teacher would have is passion for teaching. When a teacher has a passion for what they do it becomes evident to the children being taught. The difference between a lazy teacher who teaches half-assed compared to a teacher who loves their job and wants to help children learn and grow are like night and day. Students enjoy going to a class where the teachers have the desire and ambition to reach the students as individuals instead of just putting out the information.

In my hypothetical classroom, much like Mr. Keating in the movie “Dead Poets Society”, free thinking would be encouraged. I would introduce my students to poetry, great authors like Walt Whitman and the Greek philosophers to inspire them. Getting students to think for themselves and to do what makes them happy would positively effect them. If students are taught to think for themselves they will learn that asking questions is great and doing extra learning about any subject will help them on whatever path they choose to take. Schools have the tendencies to deter creativity. When a school district needs to make cuts in their budget, the arts are usually the first classes to go. By prioritizing all subjects over the arts it gives the kids the sense that it is not important and non helpful to learn. Mathematics would be the most challenging subject to teach. Math is not only a hard subject to understand but it is a subject that many students find useless, especially in the higher level math courses. The student does not need to memorize math, but instead understand the concepts of what they are doing. Using fun methods to teach math and letting kids do experiments like going outside and visually demonstrating the trajectory of a baseball or finding the height of a building without measuring it vertically will show what is being taught instead of just reading it from a book. Jerry Large stated in his column “Gift of Grit’ that if you want success, build character and the rest will follow. In my classroom I’d make sure my students are aware that I expect them to learn and they are held accountable for what they decide to do and not do. Challenging my students will help them build character and show to themselves they are very capable. If a teacher has low expectations for their students they can expect the kids to live up to them. Instead of treating the class as a group, I would spend time with everyone individually to let them know that I actually care about them and motivate them to meet my expectations. With high expectations and a challenging curriculum my students will learn that hard work does pay off and that they can use what they learned about working through tough situations and apply it to anything they do in life.
 
Only time would tell if my teaching style is effective. Obviously if my student’s test scores are raised that is one way to know that I’m making a difference. In the long run I would know I was an effective teacher if previous students of mine come back to me and tell me that I helped them outside of the classroom by the lessons I taught inside my classroom. If all teachers hold better expectations for every single one of their students the trend of schools failing kids would decrease.

Work Cited;

Chalk. Dir. Mike Akel. SomeDaySoon Productins, 2007. DVD

Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Bueno Vista Pictures distribution, 1989. DVD

Waiting For Superman. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Paramount Vantage, 2010. DVD

Large, Jerry “Gift of Grit, curiosity helps kids succeed” Seattle Times. 23 September 2012

Observing Education

Dane Bohlmann

English 101

Observing Education

Teachers have a huge power in their hands. The power to mold their impressionable students into not only better scholars, but better overall humans. It is a teachers responsibility to his or her students to get through to the kids and make sure they are learning. In the movies Stand and Deliver directed by Ramon Menendez and The Dead Poets Society directed by Peter Weir there are two extremely passionate teachers who work to inspire their students to be the best they can be. A successful teacher is one who is full of passion to teach and help others, but more importantly has the skill to inspire students to reach their full potential.



In the film The Dead Poets Society, Mr. Keating is the new English teacher at the prestigious Welton Academy in New England. The Headmaster states in the opening ceremony that Welton is the best preparatory school in the United States and reminds the students of the four pillars of Welton; Tradition, Honor, Discipline and Excellence. Welton Academy is a strict, religious boarding school meant to prepare the students for their futures. Most of the students in the academy come from wealthy families that have a long tradition of attending Welton, then ivy league schools and they are pressured by their parents to follow in their footsteps. The parents of the students already have most of their lives’ planned out for them and don’t take into consideration what the kids want to do. Stand and Deliver takes place at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, it is almost the exact opposite of the setting in Dead Poets Society. The students at Garfield come from a much poorer and hostile environment then the kids from Welton Academy. Students at Garfield don’t have the slightest clue as to what they want to do in the future and for most college wasn’t even an option. Mr. Escalante is faced with kids who have little motivation and seriousness to learn. Due to poor academic results, the school district is on the verge of being shut down. Mr. Escalante’s goal is to mold the troublesome teens he is teaching into dedicated students.

At Welton Academy on the first day of school we get to see the other teachers lecture from the textbooks and then Mr. Keating unorthodox approach. On that first day Mr. Keating takes the kids out of the classroom and inspires them to Carpe Diem, which means ‘seize the day’ and to live their lives boldly. Mr. Keating relates to the kids by telling them he also went to Welton and knew what schooling was like and secretly giving the students the Dead Poets Society book so they could re-start the club and have more free thinking. The way Mr. Keating teaches is unconventional for the time era. While the other teachers lecture their students in the classroom Mr. Keating has them outside reciting poetry and kicking soccer balls. Mr. Keating also had his students rip out the first chapter in their textbooks and march outside to teach them about freedom of expression and non-conformity. One lesson he taught his class was to look at the world from a different angle by making them stand on his desk and see for themselves. Mr. Keating lessons were all about thinking for yourself and being an individual despite what their parents want. Not only does Mr. Keating help his students inside the class but also outside of the classroom. Mr. Keating convinces one of his students to tell his strict and authoritarian father that he enjoys acting and wants to continue doing it despite his fathers wishes. After the play the dad takes his son home and tells him he is going to be pulled from Welton and put into military school where he will go to Yale and become a doctor, no excuses. This is too much for the student and he commits suicide with his father’s gun. The tragedy is blamed on Mr. Keating because he was the one that convinced the victim to stay in the play. Mr. Keating was fired from Welton and as he was leaving his classroom for the last time his students stood up on their desk and called Mr. Keating ‘Oh Captain, My Captain’ even in the face of getting expelled. This was their way of showing Mr. Keating that he had inspired them to be individuals who thought for themselves and that they knew the death wasn’t his fault.



Up until Mr. Escalante arrived as their teacher, none of the other teachers or the principal believed that the students could do anything, the students did not care about their studies because no one else did. It is Mr. Escalante’s belief that the expectations of the students from the school is so low they don’t care and the students will respond to higher expectations. Mr. Escalante had success with his students because he played the role that most young kids want in their life, someone who understands them and is willing to push them to do better. Like Mr. Keating did, Mr. Escalante tries to relate to the kids on a more personal level. Mr. Escalante has a lot of interaction with the students outside of class. He prevents a student from getting into a fight, convinces one girl’s father to let her return to school, gives everyday advice and even lets his students study in his home. This makes Mr. Escalante easy to view as a caring person that truly wants to help, not just another authoritative figure. To further help his students and relate better, Mr. Escalante uses humor and props to show the abstract concepts in math he was trying to teach all while showing how necessary math is in our everyday lives. Mr. Escalante becomes a solid role model that is always there to help his students, a role missing in many of the students’ lives.

The differences from Welton Academy and Garfield High School are like night and day, but what is similar is how Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante teach. Both teachers have a strong passion for what they do. Mr. Keating was asked by a student why he chooses Welton because he could do anything he wanted, his reply was he loves teaching and doesn’t want to be anything else. Mr. Escalante left his older higher paying job to teach math and makes it his personal mission to change the system and challenge his students to a higher level of excellence. If these two men did not have the passion they did, their effect on their students would not have been as drastic. Both teachers used unconventional teaching methods to teach their students. This broke their mindset that learning didn’t have to be dull and boring but could also be fun and rewarding. The ability the both teachers had to relate with their students made it easier for them to teach. A student is way more likely to listen and learn from someone who knows where they are coming from then from a teacher who distances themselves and distinguishes themselves as superior to their students. Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante were both extremely inspirational to their students. The Academy students adopted ‘Carpe Diem’ as their motto and the Garfield High students were inspired by Mr. Escalante to beat the stereotype they had as kids who cannot be taught. Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante used their influence as teachers to help form their students into better scholars, friends and human beings, a goal that all teachers should have in common.

　

　

　

　

　

Work Cited

Stand and Deliver. Dir. Ramon Menendez. Perf. Edward James Olmos, Lou Diamond Phillips American Playhouse, 1988. DVD.

Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke. Touchstone Pictures, 1989. DVD.

Educational Narrative

Dane Bohlmann

English 101

Education Narrative

A Swindled Summer

Everyday we learn something new, whether it is a new fact about dolphins or discovering Indian food isn’t the best, we are constantly gaining new information. Learning is usually done in a classroom but I believe the biggest lessons you can learn can‘t be taught, but have to be experienced. The summer of 2010 I learned more about life then any number of years of schooling could teach me.

My sophomore year of high school was a breeze. I played on the varsity football team, my grades would’ve made any parents proud and I was voted captain of my summer weightlifting class. Life for me at that point was going great and I couldn’t have been happier. One morning in early July, I woke up with an immense pain in my throat. I originally thought that worse case scenario I had gotten strep throat and that id be back to full health in a week or two. The sore throat persisted and after a couple of days of not being able to swallow much more than yogurt I knew it was time to see my doctor. My doctor tested me for strep and when the test came back negative she told me to take some Tylenol and to “sleep it off”. I have never been one to complain but the pain was so bad I stayed up for two days straight not being able to sleep. When I finally fell asleep I woke up without my throat hurting for the first time in over a week but I discovered my right peck had become swollen and hurt even more than my throat. It took 3 more days of misery before I finally went back to the doctors on July 14, 2010.

My second visit to my doctor was filled with confusion and panic. After countless tests I was given extra oxygen because my breathing was so low, I once again tested negative for strep throat and when my blood test results came back is when all hell broke lose. My white blood cell count was extremely high indicating I had a bad infection. Under my Doctors orders I was rushed to the emergency room at Harrison Hospital. I remember test after test in enormous, loud, expensive machinery and still nobody could tell me what was wrong. The decision was made to send me to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma because I was still technically a child, even though I was 5 foot 11, 220 pound child. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I firmly believe that if I had stayed at Harrison Hospital I would not be alive today. I tried to stay optimistic as best as I could but it is scary to go on an hour long ambulance ride by yourself then lay in a room with all your relatives crying like you already died. A little while after I got to Tacoma my body started to go into septic shock, where my body’s vital organs began to shut down and were basically preparing to die. The doctors had no other choice but to put me in a drug induced coma. While I was in the coma, the doctors made a 6 inch incision in the middle of my chest to get to the swelling. Most of my sternum and right pectoral muscle had been eaten away and turned into a puss. The cause of this was a super rare disease called Lemierres. Lemierres comes from a fusobacteria which is found in everyone’s mouth but is extremely harmful when in other parts of the body. The bacteria was clotted at my throat and then the clot broke off and made it way to my chest where the flesh eating bacteria did its damage. The drug induced coma lasted for 16 long days and for me, that was the easy part.

My entire world was flipped upside down when I finally woke up. Over two weeks of steady drugs made me hallucinate and see the most bizarre unlikely things that couldn’t have been possible but seemed so real. I do not know how long I hallucinated, my sense of time no longer existed and coming out of the coma at first seemed like it was only bad dream. I could not wrap my head around the fact that “yesterday” to me was July when in fact it was already August. My thoughts became less and less abstract and sadly reality began to set in. I was hooked into every machine you could think of and a large tube in my mouth that helped me breathe during my coma made it impossible to communicate which was the most frustrating thing of my life. Asking for anything took thirty minutes and when I tried to write down my thoughts my body refused to work. To add to the laundry list of health problems I also had a liver and gallbladder infection, severe pneumonia, and being inert for two weeks meant I had to relearn to walk. After 2 more weeks of recovering in the hospital and doing everything I could to get home and salvage the rest of my summer I was cleared. The incision made on my chest had enough room to fit a fist over my right pectoral muscle so they could not just sew up the wound. In order to get the wound to heal properly I had to carry a portable vacuum attached to my wound to get all the wonderful juices from the wound cavity out. After a month of commuting to Tacoma every other day to get my wound cleaned the vacuum finally came off just in time for school. The question in the back of my head the entire time in the hospital was if I could ever play sports again because I was now missing a huge proportion of sternum which protects vital organs. The answer I received was not clear but basically my doctor said that there is no studies to show if it’s a bad thing to do so it would be my decision to continue playing. That was all the motivation I needed to make a full recovery and come out for my senior year in football.

If there is one thing that my dreadful experience taught me it is to cherish the little things in life because you never know when your time is up. My family and close friends are what got me through my tough time. I can’t imagine how it must have felt to see someone you love in that situation. My family gave up their summer plans and goals to unselfishly be by my side. The anxiety they must have felt and hopeless feelings while I was in a coma makes me believe it was harder for them then it was for me. Fundraisers were set up by friends to help pay for my ever increasing medical bills and my football team even made frozen dinners for my family. The support friends and family showed me and all the help and patience they gave me proved that all material things can easily be replaced but family and friends are forever. My hospital stay also made me thankful for my sobriety. I woke up from the coma addicted to morphine, recovering also meant going through withdrawals. Withdrawing from a substance is a terrible experience and id never wish it upon anyone. Going through withdrawals I was cold and hot, sweating and shivering and there was no escape from being miserable. My heart goes out to people battling addiction because it takes a lot of will power to go through something that terrible. While in the hospital I had the chance to meet some of my ‘neighbors’ and it really put into perspective how much worse it could be. I met one girl who had been in the hospital for 4 months already and had about 3 more months until she recovered and suddenly my complaining about being in the hospital stopped. It could always be worse. Relearning how to walk kind of hurt my pride. You rarely ever think twice about walking, until it is taken from you. You’re supposed to teach babies to walk not 17 year olds so I was embarrassed. There is something about not being able to get up by yourself to use the bathroom and being out of breathe once you finally lay back down that makes you realize how fortunate you have been your entire life. My hospital stay gave me time to reevaluate my life and to prioritize what was important to me. I will not say that almost dying was a good experience but It did change me into a better person because of it.

Education in America

Last year when I graduated high school, only four kids in my senior class did not meet the requirements to graduate. I didn't really think much of their situation and I assumed that the small statistic would be similar for most schools. After watching the Lewis Black video on the education crisis in America I realized that I was totally clueless. Black’s video stated that our children in America rank 25^th in math and 21^st in science out of 30 developed countries, an alarming statistic. My lack of knowledge on this very important issue prompted me to do some research on my own. A report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation showed from a 2009 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) that one third of the fourth graders in the US scored ‘below basic’ on the test. The NAEP also showed that only 32% of 8^th graders and 38% of high school seniors are at or above their grade level. (studentsfirst.org) How is our lack of education going to impact us in the future? I think that if our education system doesn’t get better in the future our country’s standard of living and quality of life will be challenged. Unforeseen problems will come up in the future and without a population taught math, science and problem solving skills these problems could go unsolved.

If you flip on the television, open a magazine or get on the internet it is pretty clear that our American culture values sports and celebrities pretty much above everything else. If younger students looked up to great thinkers and scientists like Neil deGrasse-Tyson or Stephen Hawking instead of talent-less celebrities like Justin Beiber and Snooki, kids would be inspired to expand their learning instead of just shooting for the bare minimum. One way to help motivate children would be to sponsor celebrities to promote education, it would be easier to get across the point of education to younger kids if their idols told them rather than their teachers. Would this idea alone help solve the problem? Absolutely not, but if it even inspired a small amount of children to further and better their education than it would be worth it. Another way to improve test scores in my opinion would be to get rid of tenure in middle and high schools. Tenure is the practice of guaranteeing a teacher their job and is usually given after a certain number of years. Tenure originally was to ensure that the administration couldn’t fire teachers without due cause. Once a teacher gets tenure it is almost impossible for them to get fired. (Alan Greenblatt, NPR) I believe that tenure is keeping awful teachers in our Nation’s school system. In high school I could personally name off half a dozen teachers who didn’t work to help kids or even want to help them succeed. They were just there because they couldn’t be fired and had steady paycheck. Getting rid of tenure might be unfair to the decent teachers that actually want to be in schools helping kids, but if they are decent teachers they wouldn’t have much to worry about.

Its about time as a country we start looking at better ways to keep educating our children. The future of our country relies on the students in school now and depriving them of a good education will effect all of us.