When I researched “bacchanal” I found out that the word is Latin. I thought that it originated in England or something. Bacchanal is linked to Bacchus; the Roman god of wine. I kinda figured that this was the origin because when I searched up the definition it said that a bacchanal was a wild and drunken party. What I didn’t know was that it was known heavily to be a sexual party or orgy. I had no idea that it was linked to this. Trinis use bacchanal so loosely and we don’t even mean anything sexual by it. We are either talking about drama or a party. If it’s a party it’s definitely not sexual. Sometimes it doesn’t even involve alcohol. I also found out that while Trinidad was under British rule they must have brought the word with them. Trinidad has so much slang from so many different languages that it should be considered as it’s own language. I thought that it was just an accent before, but it is way more than that.
Author: Raymond Rambarose
Unit 2 Word
Bacchanal
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
While reading āThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Waoā by Junot Diaz I was confused with what the author believed. Does he believe in the āfukuā curse/doom or is he trying to prove some other point? For example, Diaz states āIn my parentsā day the fuku was real as shit, something your everyday person could believe inā (2). Diaz shows that people in his life believed in fuku; it was a common occurrence. I do not know if he himself truly believes in fuku or not. If he doesnāt, then I believe that he uses fuku as some sort of metaphor. Diaz says āā¦that whoever killed Trujillo, their family would suffer a fuku so dreadful it would make the one that attached itself to the Admiral jojote in comparisonā (3). Is the fuku a metaphor for the fate or reaction that would happen as a result of the murder of Trujillo? If not then I still found this piece of writing very entertaining. Itās not as professional as most pieces that I have read. The way Diaz speaks alone makes me create him as a character in my mind instead of just reading someoneās boring lecture. The topic was very interesting. At first I read the whole passage with the view that everything that Diaz said was literal. I found it hard to find something difficult to pick out from it so I started to nitpick at it.
Soapstone
- TheĀ speakerĀ is an African-American man named Ta-Nehisi Coates who is the writer of the article “In Defense of a Loaded Word”. He believes that everyone should be able to refer to each other with any name as long as it is used within the appropriate relationship.
- TheĀ occasionĀ is whenever Coates sees people trying to ban the use of the n-word, even when casually used by African-American people, while everyone else gets to use whatever words they want. One instance is in 2007 when the N.A.A.C.P. organized a funeral in Detroit for the n-word.
- TheĀ audienceĀ are the people who are trying to take the word away from African-Americans like it’s just as bad as if another race says it. “To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good” (3). The “we” in the quote is the audience.
- TheĀ purposeĀ of this piece is to promote people’s freedom of speech by allowing everyone to use whatever words they please as long as it is relationship appropriate and isn’t used violently.
- TheĀ toneĀ of this piece is serious because the writer has witnessed events of verbal inequality and goes against those that want to take away the word that African-Americans use in a nonviolent manner.
- I agree that we shouldn’t be able to censor words, but rather the intentions of the words as long as it is in a appropriate environment.
Gatto Rough Draft
In the article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto argues that the American public school system conditions children to be gullible, mindless consumers. This was not my personal experience with school from kindergarten through high school. While attending school I did not see the school system doing anything to make the students gullible or waving the next hot product in our faces in order to turn us into mindless consumers. Instead, students brought items into school that they saw influencers such as artists and entertainers advertise while out of school. Gatto argues that the school system turnsĀ students into “addicts” and “children”. I believe that the American school system is not as bad or corrupt as Gatto claims based on personal experience.
In the article Gatto states that “School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children” (5). I believe that the school system has not created immature human beings, but instead has matured many students through teaching them about the importance of responsibility. While in school I learned that I was responsible for my own tasks and assignments. Not being responsible for my school work would lead to my failure so in order to succeed I had to take care of my own work. This taught me not only responsibility, but independence as well. Independence, which is doing things for yourself, would lead to students maturing and not having to depend on anyone. The school system has helped me by teaching me how to be responsible and independent.
Gatto does not agree that the school system teaches responsibility, independence and maturity. He even states that “Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up” (5). Although children are put together in school, they still have to be independently responsible for tasks inside and outside of the classroom. Kids being put together leads to learning teamwork, leadership and communication. It prepares them to connect and work with others outside of a school environment. This practice of communication defeats fear rather than producing it by getting rid of problems such as social anxiety. School doesn’t make students greedy. It fuels their hunger for success by showing them that with responsibility and hard work you will be rewarded with success.
Without someone going through the school system, what they learn may vary. They may not learn to be mature at all due to the lack of responsibility without school at young ages. There is the rare case however, when people are very successful without an education or any guidance. I believe that this is not guaranteed at all. Gatto believes that it is very likely and says “Even if they hadn’t, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve- year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turn out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln?” (2). Not everyone is cut out to be or can be president, but some can be successful without a school education. School is less of a risk than wandering without guidance. Also, many of the people who make it big without school presently are the ones who endorse products and turn children into mindless consumers whether or not they go to school.
I believe that school isn’t the mindless consumer factory that Gatto thinks it is. School isn’t as bad as he describes. Through personal experience the school system has helped me more than hurt me. It has guided me as far as I am now. I have successfully completed the K-12 American school system and have knowledge and experience to take with me past it. School does teach responsibility and independence through hard work which leads to maturity.
Gatto (Reread)
While I am rereading “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto I will take a break from reading every time my mind wanders. I will take a break from reading after every page. If I haven’t lost interest after reading a page I will continue reading until I do lose interest. During my first reading I started to lose interest by page 3 and regained my focus on page 5. I will pay closer attention to pages 3 to 4.
I learned a lot from rereading “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto. I even gained more interest in what was written and agreed with the article the second time around. The first time that I read the article I was tired after a long day of classes. I didn’t really want to read all of the historical evidence given throughout the article. I couldn’t process all of the information at the time. Now after reading it again I noticed that all of the historical information being thrown at me was supporting Gatto’s claim and shows the many ways the school system was either rigged or is not working how it was intended. For example, in the article Gatto states the intended reasons for mass schooling which are “1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best” (2). These reasons are not working as intended according to Gatto who also states that “…it is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to discard them if they don’t conform” (4). I believe that he is saying that although the US wants to make each person his or her personal best, the educational system is not a personal experience at all. Some people learn differently that others, but everyone is still taught the same. This effects grades and knowledge which leads to the separation of people into either less or more successful categories. The school system wants everyone to succeed yet when they fail they are given up on. Our experience in the same classes as different people lead to different and unequal opportunities in some cases.
Gatto Difficulty Paper
John Taylor Gatto’s piece of writing “Against School” was difficult for me to read due to the ironic boredom that I faced while trying to get through it. I say that the boredom is ironic because of his statement that ” …during that time I became an expert in boredom” (1). Gatto at first talks about how the school system is boring for both the students and teachers. Afterwards he throws around an abundance of history while trying to prove his point. I felt like I had just put down an opinionated article and picked up a history textbook. I feel that there is way too much information to take in. Sometimes Gatto even states this information without even explaining how it works such as “…an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens…” (3). He states that Prussian education brings all of these flaws, but doesn’t explain how. Besides all of the boring history and not being in depth at times, I do not fully agree with Gatto’s stance on the school system. He believes that “We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of ‘success’ as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, ‘schooling’…” (2) and goes on to say that education being linked to success isn’t true. I believe that today’s world is very technologically advanced and is changing rapidly. In order for people to have a successful career in many jobs we have to prepare with school. We have to be educated and certified in certain fields in order to succeed in them. Maybe before, it was easier to be successful without an education, but now it takes a lot of knowledge to pursue most dream jobs.
