“‘I Just Wanna Be Average’”
Mike Rose
My mom teaches vocational classes. Her students learn how to create resumes and fill out applications so they look professional. She talks about work place safety and insurance plans. Her responsibility is to help her pupils transition smoothly into the work place, since they will not be attending college. Her students are the lowest achievers in the school. Many come from broken homes; some already live on their own and have children. She must fight for funding for her students; administration denies her students the funds and attention they deserve. Often times it seems that the school has given up on these students, choosing to instead focus on students who they feel have potential.
Honestly, it’s hard for me to find compassion for my mom’s students when I hear of how they flunk a class, lose a job, or mess up their life in general. I don’t understand why they can’t get it together. Often times I am like the administration; I write them off for failures.
While reading this essay and hearing of the author’s negative experience in a vocational program, I wondered what would happen if classes geared at students heading out into the work force, like my mom’s, were eliminated. Would these low-end kids be challenged and inspired if they were not simply stuck into vocational classes?
2 comments:
This essay made total sense to me. I came from a town where after high school you had two choices, work or college. From my youngest days I remember my mother and my uncles going to college. My sister and I attended my Uncle Brent's college graduation from Ohio State University and my mothers from a technical college in Ohio. There was never a question of where I would end up after high school. I always knew my answer to the standard question "what do you want to be when you grow up?" The answer always caused me to be informed that the job I desired required a college education. It was understood that my sister and I would be going to college after high school.
Yet, when I was old enough to actually understand what college was, I found that many of my friends had not thought it was a possibility for them. They didn't think their grades were or would ever be good enough. Nor did they have parents who attended college. They decided at the young age of 12 that they were going to be mechanics or nurses aids without even considering other possibilities.
This is clear with my cousin to. He is very bright, he gets good grades and is successful in school. Yet, my aunt and uncle have never encouraged him or even given him the idea that he could attend college. After his freshman year he decided that for his Junior and senior year he was going to become a welder and attend the local career center where they offered a program for that field. It makes me sad but I know it is better than being unemployed and in debt. I just feel like he and my other friends were cheated out of possible futures because of their environment. I feel like all of these students had the abilities necessary for a successful run at college yet none of them were given the chance. They were written off as hopeless cases.
Mike Rose really impacted my thoughts with this last line of the paragraph break on pg. 233: “But like all strong magic, it exacts a price.” It points to a loss of potential from a multitude of vocational students who hide behind the school system’s labeling and their own thoughts of inadequacy. Just like he described, faking stupidity is a defense and a costly one. I fear that many students forget that each one of them has what it takes to succeed in what they do and it is nobody’s place to tell them otherwise. No matter who they are or where they have come from, I know that our society needs to do a better job of supporting those who need the extra push.
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