Quite a Predicament

Response #4

Whether through reading articles, watching videos, or own personal encounters, I’m sure most all of us have been informed about the controversy orbiting around our current education system. Because this is such as large argument, this is no doubt a lot to be said about it. Several writers and speakers have recently become engaged in this dispute, creating works that either represent their stance on the subject, or simply establishes facts for readers to form their own opinion.
There are of course several ways to approach this matter, such as Ken Robinsons RSA Animate “Changing Education Paradigms.” This eleven minute video informs about the problems of education, and the stratification of knowledge, all the while illustrating pictures as he speaks. He presses that we need to change the paradigms of standard education, for our children and their future. While this is quite unique and visual, the more common approach is through articles, such as “Chained Ethnic Students Take Over School Board At Tuscan School” by Jeff Briggs and the Common Dreams Organization. This article tells of courageous students, and their fight to save their Ethnic Studies program before it becomes terminated by the board.
In Ken Robinsons video, he speaks of two reasons as to why “every country on earth, at the moment, is currently reforming public education.” The reasons are economic and cultural. Economic asking how to get our children to take their place in the twenty first century, and cultural asking how to educate children to keep cultural beliefs. He makes note that it is nearly impossible for students to find their place in the economy, when we don’t even know where its is going to be at the end of the week. Robinson also points out that because of globalization, it is ever more challenging for students to establish their cultural identity, to recognize where they came from and how they got here.
As I briefly mentioned before, in Jeff Briggs article, he informs us about students who chained themselves to board members chairs to stop a controversial resolution to cancel the Ethnic Studies/Mexican American studies  program. According to the University of California Riversides own program, “the scholarly practices of Ethnic Studies are both practical and theoretical, addressing questions of power, social movement, freedom, liberation, community, culture, and history.” They also state that “We neither imitate nor replicate the paradigms and curricula of traditional academic departments. The political-intellectual work of Ethnic Studies is guided by deep engagements with the living histories of people’s struggles to survive and transform forms of institutionalized social and cultural violence.”
In regards to Robinsons video, the board was most likely terminating the Tuscan program due to financial instability… Economic instability. The students mentioned in the article were standing up, and letting it be known that they are fed up with the attacks on their education and on their future. They want cultural identity, to be able to keep their beliefs and background.. Something that receive through their Ethnic Studies program.
As you can see, these are just dents in our educational peril. There are several more problems, questions, and answers to acknowledge. Regardless of the method or topic leading into this controversy though, most works seem to be screaming the same thing.. “our current education system is jacked up, and there is something to be done about it.”


                                                                         Works Cited


Rodríguez, Dylan. "Critical Ethnic Studies and the Future of Genocide: Settler Colonialism/Heteropatriarchy/White Supremacy." UCR Department of Ethnic Studies. University Of California Riverside, Mar. 2010. Web. 06 Sept. 2011. <http://ethnicstudies.ucr.edu/>. 


Briggs, Jeff. "Chained Ethnic Studies Students Take Over School Board in Tucson | Common Dreams." Home | Common Dreams. Common Dreams Organization, 27 Apr. 2011. Web. 06 Sept. 2011. <http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/27-0>.  


Robinson, Ken. "RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. The RSA Organization, 14 Oct. 2010. Web. 06 Sept. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U>.