peer review for 2 writing

Yantorn

Dylan Yantorn

September 14, 2020

Professor Williams English 001A

The age of oppression started long ago, as time went on, it became harder and harder for the naked eye to notice. If closely looked upon; however, it can be seen through the current day education system. The education system of the 21st century is a direct cause of oppression due to students being forced to complete tasks mechanically rather than creatively, being forced to agree with teachers blindly, and being taught to accept oppressive changes as if it were normal.

Over the many years that children are involved in school, they are taught a few different ideals that they should follow, all of which are secretly making these children slowly become more accepting of oppressive behaviors. A prime example of one of these secret tactics is how students are seen as “better students” if they are able to fill their mind with useless information and retain it (Freire 72). Students are forced to retain information through “book, essays, tests, academic scrambling, complexity, scientific reasoning, philosophical inquiry” all so that once the student leaves the school, they know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, but they know nothing about politics, taxes, or even what to expect when entering the workforce (Hooke 98). Students aren’t given many opportunities to flex their creative muscles at all in a typical school environment. Students aren’t given many opportunities to flex their creative muscles at all in a typical school environment. Every task given to the students has a specific structure that the students must follow, not because it's helpful to the individual, but because it's the quickest way to make “deposits of information which [the students and teacher] considers to constitute true knowledge” (Freire 76).

In the oppressive hierarchy of the education system, students are the very bottom of the totem pole. Students are expected to accept the word of those of a higher status (in the education system) as fact without contradicting that person. It is unacceptable for students to be forced to agree with a teacher who may be wrong solely on the pretense that the teachers “authority” as an educator is the same as the “authority of knowledge” (Freire 73). In many cases, there is even a hierarchy among students, and this isn’t just that of grade level, but rather of economic status. By default, most people expect students who come from the upper class to perform well due to their wealthy upbringing; however, this results in the creation of ranking among the students. This creates a negative connotation with “the working class”, it brings those who come from a less economically stable family to “learn to be ashamed of where [they] had come from” (Hooke 102).

A natural result of the idea that the upper class is better than the rest, students will start to believe that there is a difference between their intellectual abilities and someone from an opposing economic class. If children grow up to believe that economic class determines their intelligence, the moment they are able to think for themselves, this will be a normality. This is a way for “the oppressors” to brainwash the citizens into accepting the oppression that is being forced upon them (Freire 73). The banking concept of education describes men as “adaptable” or “managable beings”, if students are preoccupied with stuffing their brain with “knowledge”, they will never get the opportunity to develop a thought process of their own which could ultimately lead to a less oppressive society (Freire 73). The problem is the fact that “the oppressor” doesn’t care to see the world be revealed or changed because it would not benefit them economically (Freire 73). Seeing how the education system brings oppression might be difficult at first; however, all it takes is just a little bit of extra time to actually see and understand what is going on. When students are told to write an essay or speech, they are given a certain structure and are told to be unbiased toward an issue that they may or may not care about. This method of writing has a specific intent behind it. The intent of this type of speech is to make the presenter unaccustomed to speaking their own thoughts, opinions, or emotions. These three personal aspects in any form of speech or writing would make readers (or listeners) want to listen more due to the fact that the writer doesn’t sound like just any writer, but rather another human being. It is seen as “a sign of intellectual weakness” for a speaker to bring up personal stories within a speech, or to use “simple language” at all in their speech (Hooks 105). With this alone, it would be very difficult for a person to convey their message across to their audience. If they are frowned upon for making their message simple, they will simply make their message more “intellectual” by using larger words. This makes the audience have a harder time understanding the message that is being sent their way, ultimately leading nowhere, to a world without change. With the education system leaving children to take in as much knowledge as they can in such a short period of time, these students will become “detached from reality” as memorization becomes the norm rather than actually understanding what it is they are looking at (Freire 71).

In the end, it is clear that people are being oppressed from a very young age, by brainwashing its people, a community can oppress whomever they need to gain a profit. The education system is the primary cause for oppression because it teaches children to blindly accept anything as fact, being forced to complete tedious tasks with nothing to gain, and being shown a world of oppression in order to convince them this is a normalcy.