Literacy and History: American Public Education

AGREE: Breaking away from the traditional classroom Students can’t learn from this system of sitting and listening to lectures in the classroom. Wirt was trying to break away this stigma of children always sitting down and doing work. This is not an effective way for the student’s learning process. They may be able to understand it at that point, but they might not be able to retain anything in the future. Wirt wanted “was for the kids to have a rich school experience so they were busy all the time and we're getting involved in things that would interest them”(p. 86). This is something ideal even in today’s school. We want c hildren to be interactive and engaged in the classroom. They will not participate in the classroom if there’s no fun in the classroom. I think by breaking away from this rigid strategies can make students want to go to school more often. ARGUE Becoming ‘Americanized’ Immigrants have to go to school and lose in touch with their own values and customs. The

 It was very interesting to see how Common Schools were first developed. I think as students we tend to underestimate how much education is worth. The importance of what family you came from is very important to see how educated you are. The wealthy were easily accessible to education while the poor couldn't gain an education. There was this balance that is seen to be struggled throughout the book where they tried to make the schools be equal to everyone. They wanted these schools accessible to not only the wealthy, but the poor as well. However, the system of creating schools were still unbalanced in the beginning. There was still conflicts of sexism and racism with schools. Girls were not given the same opportunity to gain education like the boys did. Also, segregation was still affecting the school system where African Americans were not allowed to be in the schools. Tradition was something that is talked over many times within the book. Tradition is something that people fo

     I have always struggled with literacy growing up as a child. I started my foundation of literacy in a private school in Paterson. I was in that private school from pre-kindergarten to kindergarten. My experiences of literacy can be only compared to my learning of literacy from a private to a public school setting. I honestly don’t remember too much of literacy within my private school. It wasn’t really much of a priority from what I remember. When my parents decide to put me in public school that is when everything changed. In my first-grade class, I struggled with reading and writing. I had to get extra help within the classroom and sometimes get pulled out as well. I had to stay behind a year due to I was behind than the others in the class.          My parents had always been my supporters by providing paid tutors and willing to participate with extra help. My stepfather would sit down with me for hours when doing homework. I always dislike doing my literacy homework so he wou