Author: Obed Pen-Ogbolu (Page 9 of 11)

• “Research can be productively used in this way to verify assumptions and arguments.”(Page 231, Paragraph 2) This is just a statement that I want to keep in mind. Research is always a viable answer to our questions. It doesn’t always have to be experimentation. Someone may already have the answer we are looking for, unless you really wanna find the answer yourself.
• “When we are open to selecting and engaging with these multiple published perspectives in our research, we’re also forced to consider how they extend or challenge our beliefs and ideas about a topic.”(Page 232, Paragraph 2)  Research always leads to different results. People will always have different views. Hearing about how we will always encounter clashing opinions is something I find interesting, cause we might just both be right, but we might just both be wrong.
• “The messiness of research requires us to be flexible, often modifying our approaches along the way”(Page 232, Paragraph 3) There is never an easy way to research. When you research, you are going to gain a lot of information all at once, and so the different ways that we organize that research can lead us to different approaches, which then leads us to different results.
• “Although our culture would tell us that we have to know everything, and that we should even begin a research project by knowing the answer to our question, there is obvious value in using research as a tool to engage our curiosity and sense of wonder as human beings—perhaps even to improve our lives or the lives of others.”(Page 234, Paragraph 3)I found this statement interesting because I never do research while already knowing the answer, at least I don’t think I do. When I do research, it is always for curiosity’s sake. I think the only time I ever do research while knowing the answer is if I am trying to verify, in which in that case, the answer I have may be wrong. But the idea that society wants us to know everything is one I agree with. It is one of the many expectations put on people to have the right knowledge at the right time.

• “Let us say that the child is seven years old and I am his father… the child knows this, though he doesn’t know why.”(Page 2, Paragraph 2) This paragraph really speaks to me. I’ve seen the projects and I have family who live in the projects. I know what kind of dangers are there and how unclean the buildings are. Those areas are common living pplaces for Black people and I understand exactly what it is like to be in those areas.
• ” Children, not yet aware that it is dangerous to look too deeply at anything, look at everything, look at each other, and draw their own conclusions.”(Page 2 Paragraph 1) This is a sentence that also speaks to me. The history of America is a pretty dark one, and so there are many things left out when they teach the younger children about it. Many Black children don’t understand their circumstances or the things that happen around them, and because they don’t know, they try and learn by observing everything around them.
• “The Bible says somewhere that where there is no vision the people perish. I don’t think anyone can doubt that in this country today we are menaced – intolerably menaced – by a lack of vision.”(Page 4, Paragraph 4) I thought this line was very powerful. Baldwin uses the Bible to talk about America’s current circumstance, that we lack a vision, and so our country is in turmoil, where people have different visions instead of one united one, and so conflict emerges from that argument.
• “I was not a “nigger” even though you called me one. But if I was a “nigger” in your eyes, there was something about you – there was something you needed.”(Page 3, Paragraph 3) This line interested me because this was the moment when Baldwin started to fight back, when he knew something was wrong. Baldwin believed that he wasn’t what people said he was, but he also knew that the country believed he was what they said he was, and so he is forced to be that something. That alone is the conflict of the country.

When Baldwin says the world is larger, I believe he means exactly what he said. The world is larger than anyone thinks. There are many different opportunities to discover and experiences to have while you are out in the world. Baldwin talks a lot about the experiences of Blacks and African Americans throughout American history. Just as there has been a lot of oppression to Blacks in that histoy, there have also been movements to help Black people and supporters who try ans help any way they can. And just like the oppresion of Blacks is a big thing in America, there is more to the world than just America. There are many different continents with many different countries where Black people can avoid the hate and discrimination they get in America. Places where Black people can strive higher do exist, they just need to search past the shackles of America.

I think it is a necessity to learn about our own race’s history. There are many people in different situations that don’t know why they are in that situation, but it is something that can be learned through their history. Take me for example. Me as an African American can still go through things like discrimination or racial attacks. This has been going on in America since slavery. African Americans experiencing oppression is nothing new to this country, and is something that probably won’t change for years to come. If I didn’t know this, then at any moment I could walk into a fire. It is more dangerous to be ignorant of it than it is to know about it. I know now, because I know this history, that I could be in danger. The dangers of the areas that Black people are forced to live in and the dangers of all those who don’t support Black people are things that I can protect myself from because I know of our history.

It’s the third grade and we are preparing for the state tests. There are students surrounding me in almost every direction, all of them with notebooks and pencils out. The teacher is going of the structure of the state test and what things we should work on first. The smell of coffee filled the room. While I wasn’t a big fan of it, it did remind me of pancakes for some reason. The lights on the ceiling flickered sometimes. My desk would screech across the floor when I moved even slightly. The sun shined brightly through the window near me, so I remember it being hard to see my paper. All these different things bothered me little by little, but the thing that upset me the most was the state test. The state test seemed like the only thing on everyone’s mind, even the teacher’s. Everything we learned was just thrown out the window just for this one test. Even the other subjects like science and social studies were paused in favor of state test prep. Seeing as science was my favorite subject at the time, that really pissed me off.

The enjoyment of my school life diminished as school shifted its focus to the State Test. All the fun activities that we used to do were replaced with concentrated study on test structure. I never enjoyed learning how to take a test. I would rather just learn about the material on it. It’s not like I don’t get it. Test scores are important for schools, but it’s a different story if you are more concerned with that then the student’s education themselves. Being forced to take countless practice tests while reading and writing everyday fueled my hate for the English subject. I will never forget the stress I felt while preparing for the state tests, asit is stress that I felt every other school year after that. I know all schools don’t do this, but if it is a school that does, then you are going to burn out your students faster than the tests will, especially at a young age. If you want better test scores, then actually teach the children subjects.

I really hate it when schools don’t take the students into consideration. Not everything should be about having good test scores to make yourself look better. I wouldn’t even be surprised if some schools purposefully encourage people to apply so that they can reject them and make their acceptance rate look good so people can think they are a good school. At this point students just seem like tools to better the school instead of the other way around. I can still remember how big the celebration was when my elementary school became a Blue Ribbon school. That is a big achievement, but at the cost of so much stress to children who haven’t even hit their pre-teens yet. I also remember how things were like after the state test. Learning felt so lackluster, like the main story was completed so the rest of it is just filler. I was so bored of just sitting there, listening to unenthusiastic teachers who aren;t even trying to appeal to the students anymore. That time of my life was truly unfortunate.

The whole idea of a test is to evaluate the student, to see what they know and what they’ve learned. You kind of ruin the point of a test when you purposefully teach us its contents and how to pass it. If I get a good score on a test without actually learning anything then what is the point? Im basically just cheating at that point. It won’t even feel like I progressed in school. My elementary school had a great building that looked like a great place to learn, but I feel like I didn’t learn as much as I should have. I feel like most of my learning was outside of school or in my extracurriculars. My middle school wasn’t a good one either, but I feel like I learned way more in that school, like they wanted us to know as much as possible, but in its own way that wasn’t fun either. That one felt more like they were trying to cramp all the information down my throat before I left the school and if I didn’t understand it then there was something wrong with me. But some of the teachers did realize that they were going too fast and did slow down for us, so that was kinda nice. The test scores weren;t the best or anything but it felt like I came out knowing more of what I should have.

I’m not one to go on a tangent like this about school, but I never really had fun with school after the early stages. It just felt boring having to read a lot of boring stories or do homework when I could be doing something much more enjoyable. That mindset turned me into a not ok student. But I believe things could have been different if I had a different learning experience. I’ve had classes that were fun, where we did fun activities or had really fun teachers. it made me want to participate, made me want to interact more so I could have more fun. But most of my learning experience seems to be the same old uninterested teachers either working for the money or just trying to make the school look better. If only things were different, I could be enjoying school and learning way more than I am now. I wouldn’t have this feeling of worry or this growing disinterest for anything related to school. My perspective on education could’ve been a complete 180, and that seems to interest me more than school.