Barber Blog Response

What is the author’s main argument or thesis statement?

Barber's main argument begins with an allusion to the founding fathers and states that the fathers believed that education is a very imperative part of democracy. He uses this to later develop his argument by saying schools are now being exposed to more outside opinions and trends. This in turn is degrading the education in America and slowly crippling the idea of democracy the founding fathers once had.

Thesis: "Equally important as dimensions of education and citizenship was education that would make the Bill of Rights real, education that would make democracy succeed.

To whom is the author writing and what is the gap or context that the author proposed to fill?

I believe that Barber's intended audience was school board educators or administrators who actually oversee spending and budget operations to appeal to why they let advertisements and corporations take over their school districts. The other audience, Barber appeals to directly by asking "What type of school are you? Pepsi or Coke?" and also demanding them to stand up to Channel One and college cafeterias.

How does the author support her argument – what evidence does s/he use? List at least two examples.

Barber does a "quick trajectory" through history from the signing of the Declaration of Independence to September 11, 2001. In that time frame he gives the founding fathers vision of education and how they thought it is essential to democracy, to education today and how it has slowly deteriorated. He also uses a good ol' fashion dose of logic throughout the whole article (No References!). Every argument of his is well thought out and reinforces his arguments with very good arguments and logic.

HW For Friday

1.  What key terms occurred frequently during the discussion, which are important to understanding Anyon?  Name and define at least four.

Methodology, social classes, occupations, incomes, empirical, conceptualization, independent, developing socioeconomic relationships, and theory.  (bold words are important to understanding Anyon)

Methodology -  a body of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline : a particular procedure or set of procedures, Social classes - people are arranged into appropriate classes according to their occupations, income, and education, Empirical -  originating in or based on observation or experience, Socioeconomic relationships - relationships between social classes and members of the same social class based on income, wealth, occupation, and education.

2.  Describe at least two discussion points which clarified your understanding of Anyon -  the discussion point may have changed your mind, added something you hadn't known or thought of before, or even agreed with your own conclusions in an interesting way.

Anyon's thorough definition of social classes helped me understand the parents background and what types of jobs each class usually holds,  this helped the correlation between social classes and the work expected to be done by the students at school.  Her conclusion is put together very well and is also written very well.  It sums everything up accurately, states her position, and persuades you without much prodding.

3.  Compare and contrast your experience of reading Anyon and your experience of discussing Anyon.  Which experience proved most valuable for you in understanding Anyon's argument?  What did each experience bring you?

Well, reading Anyon was pretty straight forward.  She stated her position and her parameters for how she was collecting her data and then did it.  Overall the whole article is put together very well and is very persuasive.  Discussing however is different since all classmates are coming from very diverse schools and backgrounds, viewpoints are going to vary.  Discussing is more valuable because it allows for all viewpoints to be heard and opportunities for rebuttal.  Discussing is also more valuable because you can say your viewpoints as opposed to reading where Anyon is just stuffing information and her views into your face.  Granted, reading is helpful.  You would have no idea what we would be talking about the past couple of days,  but I find discussing, and even sometimes debating, about this article more entertaining.

I would say the high school I went to would be an executive elite school. Not so much for social class reasons, but for how the school was run and how the classes were taught. We were expected to do readings outside of class so we could discuss it the next day in class. Also teachers gave us the basic formula but we were allowed to expand on it and possibly find different ways of solving problems in science and math classes. And during some weeks, the teachers would expect us to teach the class by reading the material, developing a lesson plan and teaching the class. And we had to make sure we did a good job because the material we taught would end up on the next test. However, in grade school (1st - 4th) I would say I went to a working class school. The teachers wrote whatever was on the board and we copied it down. Spelling of words, math problems, definitions, etc. Whatever the teacher wrote down was deemed correct.