Meagan Maestas

Proposal
English 220
Ms. Alapin
Whats Your Personal Educational Manifesto?
My personal outlook on education these days is that we are not meeting all standards. We
should be teaching more important things, and minimize the more unimportant things. The
education provided in public schools should be more geared towards assisting students to figure
what career path they are most interested in. Subjects that are required in later education should
be pushed more in early education, rather than teaching students topics that will not be beneficial
later in their education.
I am one person who personally is not satisfied with my previous education. The
education I received prior to attending college, did not prepare me to achieve my goals as
quickly as I would have liked to. There are many things that I feel should have been taught to
me, things that would have had me better prepared to continue my education at UNM. One
subject I feel should have been stressed a little more in my previous education was Spanish
(foreign languages), because foreign language is so important in later education. I feel I would
have been better prepared for college, had I been required to take four years of a foreign
language in high school.
Foreign language is very important, especial when you grow up in a culture that is
bilingual. The school I attended did not require students to take a foreign language until the end
of high school. Learning any foreign language is already hard, and learning in your late teens
seems to make it even more difficult. Most kids wont even remember the important things from
these classes, but as long as they can retain it through the test, they seem to slide through. When
the students arrive at college, they are expected to know all they were taught in High School, but
in reality they have forgotten most of what they learned. Another issue I see is the students are
not educated in how foreign language maybe more beneficial to the culture they live in. For
example, I live in New Mexico and we have a high number of Spanish speaking residents. It
would be more beneficial for me in the future to be more fluent in Spanish.
There are many ways we can better prepare our students to learn a foreign language.
Though this may not seem like a very important subject, in the state of New Mexico, it can really
help you in the long run, especially getting a job. All we have to do is start teaching it at home
and in pre-k. Also I agree with Gandhi, in the sense of teaching students personally and at home,
doing this would really enhance our students second language skills. Even the smallest amount
of background knowledge can assist the students in later life situations, such as college level
foreign language classes and even more when it comes down to getting a job.
Personally I do not understand why we dont do this; I think it would better benefit our
students. It doesnt have to be intense in the beginning, but as we do in math a gradual increase
would benefit the students better. We would benefit more from this than learning subjects like
cursive writing. I remember practicing cursive for so long, and then we just stopped using it. I
never used cursive after I left middle school. I have on the other hand had a lot of issues with not
knowing Spanish very well. This can be fixed if our educational leaders care more and pay more
attention to the little differences I have talked about. We need to assist our students to be
prepared for further education and potential job opportunities.
Education today should be more structured to assist students for further education and
jobs. I agree with Bill Clinton in the statement he makes about having every school duplicate the
top 20 schools. Our public schools should be doing better as far as standardized test grades. The
school boards are letting too many low grades slip through the system, leaving the students
unprepared for college. The colleges are accepting these poor grades into their system, which
sets students up for failure.
The students, who are barely making it through early education, are finding it difficult to
be successful at the college level. They are the ones who eventually drop out, not because they
cannot do the work but because they were not prepared to tackle the education at the college
level. Students that barley pass classes with a C average grade, or not doing homework and
expecting to get extra time, or just merely passing through the class with the least knowledge
gained. These students find it very difficult to be successful once they start attending college.
This can easily be stopped merely by making our schools more accountable for the
education students receive. Schools need to be more competitive when it comes to the academic
aspect rather than just the sports; this will assist with the end results of student grades. It is all
fine and dandy to be big into high school sports, and the schools now are doing better in the fact
that the athletes have to meet grades in order to play or even stay on the team. But can we make
the education more structured for success, rather than excepting students who pass with an
average C grade. How about if the expectations are higher, for those who would like to
participate in extra activities.
I found an article online that talks about 10 easy steps we can make in order to improve
our public schools. The article is 10 Ways a Mayor Can Help Improve Public Education. In the
article one of the many points they make is that we need to [r]ecognize and encourage schools
that show improvement. I agree with this very much, if we acknowledge the schools that are
doing well, than the other schools will feel the need to improve their schools in order to compete.
This same article mentions that we need to [b]uild strong relationships with school
district leaders., as well as[e]ncourage parents to be active in their children's education. I
strongly believe both of these statements are relevant in getting our schools on track
academically. As far as school district leaders, everyone needs to be on the same page. This
will reassure they have the right vision for our students and they are ready to make the
adjustments needed and capable of taking actions. This will really help in getting schools to
meet standards that are necessary for a better education. Also having more parents on board with
the education world is a huge topic.
Parents are very important when it comes to the students, if a parent is not on board with
the school or the teaching systems then the child will likely not be as successful. The students
whose parents are not active seem to be the ones who lose interest and not try their best. Though
they may make it through they will not have the drive needed to really retain the information
they are learning. Positive parents, who take a lead role in their children education, assist their
child with achieving a better education.
Before our children start school they need a parents attention and their willingness to
focus on their education, to teach them the nature vs. nurture as Gandhi would say, as part of
learning, they need that background to help them get the whole gist of the education they are
receiving. It will help our students in the long run if they have a background of some sort of
education at home as well as the public education in class. The only problem is that a lot of
public schools are having troubles when it comes to getting our students grades up.
Perhaps one of the best ways to improve public education would be to loosen the
strictures that tie student and school evaluations to test preparation and instead to allow teachers
to instruct students in the sort of project-based units supported by educational research and the
sort of critical-thinking skills that cannot be measured by filling in bubbles the sort of
academic freedom that is praised in charter schools but restricted in traditional public schools,
said Elizabeth Walters, a Louisiana public school teacher. Louisiana is ranked 49
th
Mississippi
being the worst.
This is one of the major problems we have with our public schools, focusing too much on
standardized test grades. Our teachers today are too focused on getting our students to regurgitate
what they are taught for the test. The reason this is such a major problem is that the only stuff
they are learning is what is on these tests. This is all because we make it seem as though these
tests are so important, when it would be better if the students to could retain the information they
learn.
Going back to Gandhis thought on home schooling and learning from a teacher whom is
very close to the student such as a parent or relative. At times I think he is right in thinking this
because the student is learning more on what is needed. The adult teaching them has gone
through life and knows more of what is beneficial for the student. This seems like it would be
more beneficial for the student, not just the step by step stuff that is on the standardized test
given in public schools.
Another issue is the lack of seats and time for one on one attention from teachers.
Whereas, if we were taught Gandhis way this would not affect us. Lately it seems there are too
many students in each class, leaving the teacher to not have enough one on one time with the
students. This is disadvantaging the students who are in need of the extra one on one attention
from the teacher. As a result to this we have students who get frustrated and give up, or hide in
the back of the class. The back of the class is ok, to an extent because this student will possibly
make it through and get out of high school but they will struggle even more in college and most
likely drop out.
An article I found really interesting, was Student perspective on improving our
educational system. Which talks about improving our educational system in a students
perspective, I found this to be a pretty cool article being the fact that it is based on what a student
thinks for once, not just what the board or the teachers or parents think. But instead this article
talks more in the voice of who is being affected.
Every year, foundations, think tanks and various other organizations produce lengthy
papers detailing whats wrong with the state of education in our public schools and colleges, and
what can be done to improve it. Yet nothing happens. Billions of dollars are spent on technology
but the scores don't budge, and the same (if not more) percentage of students continue to drop
out of school or take forever to graduate, says Hasan Rahim, from the article listed in the
previous paragraph, I couldnt agree with this quote more.
Hasan Rahim makes a great point with this quote, he says basically that the money we
spend to better our education is almost wasted. It is spent on things that make our schools
fancier and give our students fancier equipment. This stuff is all nice but not needed and also not
really making the education we receive any better than it would be without them. Dont get me
wrong though I still agree we have come up with some good technologies, which absolutely
bettered and furthered our education. We just dont need to be as fancy as possible, we can stick
to what works and focus on the actual education we will be receiving from it.
Thinking back to Gandhi one last time, he believes we dont need all the fancy
technologies, which is fine. Some people do not need these to help them in their education, and
many of them do great without it. But while he is not totally against the new learnings, he has
a good point on not needing them. Sometimes we get too caught up in being up to date with the
latest, newest, coolest, and best technologies, we seem to forget what it is we need them for, or
how they will really benefit us. We get lost in all the popular happenings that we miss out on
whats important, our education!
This is my educational manifesto, with a little help from some important educational
leaders as well as some people who are just a part of our educational system. Giving you a little
bit of our public school problems and some solutions weve come up with to fix our education.
Whats your educational manifesto?!






Work Cited:
Devitt, Terry. "Lightning injures four at music festival." The Why? Files. 2 Aug. 2001. 23 Jan.
2002 <http://whyfiles.org/137lightning/index.html>.

Walters, Elizabeth. How Do We Improve Public Schools? Take Away Their Funding, Terrorize
Teachers, and Send Kids Somewhere Else (According to lawmakers) 7 April 2012
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/04/how-do-we-improve-public-schools/

Gonzales, Ron. Mayors On Education, SAN JOS. 10 Ways a Mayor Can Help Improve Public
Education http://www.nytimes.com/ref/college/collegespecial3/coll_opinion_gonz.html


Rahim, Hasan. Student perspective on improving our educational system 13 August 2013
http://www.examiner.com/article/student-perspective-on-improving-our-educational-system

Bill Clinton: Ideas Festival: Bill Clinton's Big Idea on... by FORAtv

Mahatma Gandhi. Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth