Looking Through Lenses

After last week’s class, it has shown to me that we as students and readers will look at informational text through different “lenses”, as Dr. Rosen had mentioned during our group discussion. Our personal responses reflect what we felt were the most significant parts of information that we took back with us, which shows that biases can be insightful and gives a much more broad perspective of what it is to read academic text.

In my own bias opinion, the word that truly encompassed the first part of our text was “literacy”. The text described the goal of the education system as becoming literate. Literacy was defined as a form of power that made a person marketable and more likely to have the stronger hand over others. Literacy is also what people, such as immigrants, were trying to obtain in order to serve as a member of society and live a successful and prosperous life.

Other people chose words like foundation, school, education, equalizer, wealthy, and textbooks. Some of these are great buzzwords that stimulate conversation, whereas others in my opinion can be argued as to how they do not define this section of text as a whole. For example, foundation is a great word as to how the public education system was started like a blank slate and has been propelled through the years gradually growing, shifting, and changing. This kind of word also gives me a great abstract visual as if the education system were a physical entity such as a building which would soon be renovated and shaped throughout the years. Ironically, educational settings and environments indeed have been renovated and look different through the years. What was once a small room can now be a large hall where students gather for lecture to obtain knowledge that would give them the life skills to achieve their goals. The word “school” on the other hand is merely a generalized word that did not really spark any initial thought of what I was to expect from the text. The title of the book to begin with is “School”, so to hear that as a word that summed up such a dense piece of text made me feel a little indifferent. There was no tinder to spark my connection.

With our phrases, some chose those that fit our own personal personas and feelings. I chose the phrase “…all citizens have an obligation”. This phrase makes you ask “what obligation?” The obligation is that we should feel the need to better the lives and of other because those before us have done the same. This sentence comes from a part of the text that explains that without tax dollars, we would not an education system, and without an education system, people would not have the jobs they presently have. It is a symbiotic relationship that has kept the education system flowing since the start of its cornerstone. I personally believe that in order for anything to function properly, there needs to be symbiosis. We need that mutualistic relationship that keeps a healthy flow that supports one another.

Others chose phrases such as “…effective education for the 21^st century…” This concept views this section of the book as a stepping stone to what we would hope for as being an effective education for the future generations to come. This phrase makes me think that what is happening currently, or as what happened in the past, contributes to the development in the effectiveness of how they education system will form and develop.

The choices of sentences we all picked had to be the most diverse. My sentence was, “Immigration swelled… These factors formed the necessary preconditions for the creation of public schools. I personally believe that immigration is a valuable contribution to a country that prides itself of diversity and innovation. People of different cultures have strong influential forces that provide structure and insight on how a country functions and how it is defined culturally. Immigrants also add to the economic stimulation, creating jobs and opportunities to those that would otherwise not have a life worth living. Immigration was also one of the major trailblazers that gave rise to the increase of power and knowledge to people of color and women.

Some students thought differently, and one pointed out more nationalistic views where the book discusses eliminating colonial textbooks from the public school system. “The goal to eliminate ‘the British textbooks from American classrooms’ to get rid of colonization from our memories”. This to me describes how America wants to move forward and remove ties from its European ancestry. In a way this progressive and gives room to grow our own ideologies of pedagogy without the bias of opposing political groups, but it also gives rise to the idea that there might be an ignorance towards the past systems that helped shape the current systems we have in place. This is all a matter of perspective and personal bias which makes instances like this interesting and valuable to see other points of view.

Taking a peek through other peoples’ “lenses” was really interesting and gives me a chance to now read with the knowledge that someone else might look at the text from a different perspective with a different opinion on what is the more valuable or recapitulative of the text. I definitely will be start to think this way when reading to really start questioning what others might think when they read themselves.