The Head Gamemaker: David Coleman

I would like to let everybody know about a man named David Coleman. You’ve probably never heard of him before, but if you are any where within ten feet of a school you can feel his effect. David Coleman was the man who pushed the Common Core standards through the federal government – radical standards that seek to further standardize education. And, as of last October, he is also the head of the “non-profit” College Board, which is in charge of both the SAT and all AP classes. This man, who was never voted by anyone and who has a comparatively radical view of education is determining the federal standards, classroom curriculum, advanced high-school courses, and college entrance exams of students across the country. 

            The main theme of David Coleman’s platform is readying the student for a professional life. While this is a noble and worthwhile goal, Coleman effectively bulldozes a personal and “human” education. The romantic notions of education: discussing literary texts and personal opinions are exactly what he wants to cut out. Instead Coleman has pushed for the reading of informational texts, and has even gone so far as to recommend that children read memos – those derided examples of corporate homogeny – as part of their curriculum. Coleman mocked the personal aspect of childhood education when he remarked that a boss would never say, “Johnson, I need a market analysis by Friday, but before that, I need a compelling account of your childhood.” While here he is in fact speaking the truth, he is speaking the truth for adults and not for children. The world of business is a cruel world that does not focus on the individual needs, but serves the purpose of a bottom line. This mentality cannot and should not be applied to childhood education.

            It is easy to see that David Coleman does have good ideas. The American educational system should be made more rigorous and challenging, but not at the cost of losing the humanity of school. The world of business and grown-ups is cold and demeaning enough; there is no reason why we need to bring children into it. Coleman’s ideas should be seen in education reform, but they should not be the only voice. This one man cannot be allowed to dictate and monopolize what is essentially our entire educational system.

Banneker: Rhetoric Elegante

The dichotomy between the natural rights that our forefathers fought for and their desire to escape from the tyranny of the British – while at the same time enslaving and entire race of people – has always been troubling to the American psyche. While many have brushed it under the table since the dawn of our nation, on this text Benjamin Banneker, the son of a slave, calls Thomas Jefferson out on his hypocrisy. In the way that he addresses Jefferson, in his extended analogy between the enslavement of the colonists and the black race, and finally in his masterful employment of logos, Banneker successfully makes his argument for African American freedom.

            One of the most interesting and apparent rhetorical strategies that Banneker employs is his repetition of the word Sir. “ Sir, suffer me to recall to you… Here, sir, was a time in which… Sir, I suppose that your knowledge,” are just of few of the times that Banneker repeats this word. This choice in diction has a complex effect on the audience. On one hand, the use of the word sir formalizes the tone of the letter and is a sign of respect. But, on the other hand, this use, and how frequently it is repeated creates a sense that Banneker is almost mocking Jefferson, and is calling him out for pretending to be a great liberator of human rights while still enslaving fellow human beings. This one word choice also serves the reader in that it emphasizes that this text is in reality a personal letter; it has been written by a man who has lived the horrors of slavery and is directly appealing to one of the most powerful men in America to put and end to it.

            Banneker’s letter achieves its monumental and moving tone by making the comparison between the natural rights of man that were so instrumental in sparking the American revolution, and the natural rights of black men. Because this letter was written in 1791, the revolutionary values were still at the forefront of the American mind.  Banneker writes of how God has bestowed the “rights and privileges which have been conferred upon them (the white colonist), that at the same time counteract his mercies in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression.” Thus this comparison that Banneker makes between the oppression of the British and the oppression of the white man is quite apt, and ultimately is a wise way to approach convincing Jefferson that slavery in unjust.

            The appeal that Banneker most depends on is logos. His rhetorical strategy entailed presenting a logical argument that would expose the backwardness of racial injustice. His clear steps present an inescapable and obvious truth to Jefferson: that he has become the same oppressor that he fought against; he should, “be found guilty of that most criminal act which you professedly detested in others.”  

Banneker eschews preaching about his personal experiences with slavery to build ethos, or writing about the harsh and disheartening experience of slavery to build pathos. It is clear here that his use of logos was a wise and calculated decision; one that was tailored to the subject and recipient of this letter. Thomas Jefferson, who was a highly intelligent and rational man, would respond better to logic than to any emotional grandstanding. Thus Banneker once more shows his skill and manipulation of rhetoric.

            It is impossible to imagine the amount of emotion that would go into writing a letter to one of the most powerful men in America, a slave-owner himself, from the perspective of a black man whose family has been betrayed by slavery. But Benjamin Banneker does not let anything get in the way of his clear and logical appeal for justice. He artfully maneuvers diction and syntax to reveal the hypocrisy of a man who has dedicated his life to perpetuating the God-given rights of man, but who at the same time enslaves humans. The way that Banneker addresses Jefferson is clearly a double-edged sword: at the once respecting and mocking the future of President of the United States. This cry to end slavery is a particularly effective and thought-provoking text because of its author’s mastery of rhetoric. 

Florence Kelley: Master of Rhetoric

Child Labor is one of the most persistent and malicious problems of industrialized society. From the rise of industry in the mid nineteenth century, employers have used child labor, as they have realized that they can manipulate the defenseless children of the lower class, who are trapped in an endless carousel of poverty. It was in the early twentieth century when socially conscious activists attempted to improve society, many of these activists being women’s groups. Florence Kelley was one in the vanguard of social activism, who fought for the right of children for a childhood – so that they are not working endless hours in filthy conditions. In her speech Kelley used rhetorical devices and appeals to emphasize the plight of the child, attempt to make the audience emotionally involved with the speech, and finally call the audience to action by highlighting a larger purpose. In her mastery of rhetoric, Kelley proves herself an effective orator.

Kelley uses several rhetorical appeals to get the audience to empathize with the child laborers. First appealing to logos, she states startling facts like,“ two million children under the age of sixteen are earning their bread… varying in age from six and seven years.” Next Kelley also appeals to pathos by emotionally painting a picture of the plight of children, “While we sleep little white girls will be working tonight in mills.” Additionally, she uses other rhetorical devices such as similes. For example she calls a New Jersey law a “long backward step” and compares children to “little beasts of burden” who are “robbed of school. ” Kelley also uses juxtaposition to emphasize the difference between children and adult workers; a little girl carries “her pail of midnight luncheon as happier people carry their midday luncheon.” Finally, she uses asyndeton to emphasize the amount that children work, “they are in commerce, in offices, in manufacturing.” All of these literary elements create a broader sense for the audience of the harsh conditions of childhood labor.

Florence Kelley not only uses literary elements on a micro level, in individual sentences, but also on a macro level, throughout whole paragraphs and passages. In achieving this, Florence utilizes several overarching themes and elements. One such example of this is the thread of a child’s birthday that runs through the piece. She repeatedly mentions the birthday in the context of how much a child is working on that supposedly special day.  The harsh dichotomy between the mention of a birthday, colloquially a day full of cake and parties and celebration, and a child working in a cold and brutal factory allows for the audience to become emotionally involved. Yet another place where Kelley uses this tactic is in her repetition of the word our, to make the audience feel complicit in exacerbating the problem of child labor. She mentions our shoes, our stockings, our hats, our cotton underwear, to emphasize that the things that consumers buy are all made by children. Finally, Kelley has a broader purpose to her piece. She hopes that it will serve as a call to action to not only stop child labor, but to do this by fulfilling the dream of the women’s vote. She is a realist though, and realizes that while women cannot directly vote for child labor protection, they can enlist groups such as the unions to help. Here Kelley reveals the purpose of her speech, to inspire women to do whatever they can to stop child labor.

For one to have been simply listening to Florence Kelley’s speech on the floor of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, it would be easy to only see it as an elegant speech on child labor. But upon further inspection, it becomes evident just how linguistically complex the text is. Kelley is clearly a master of rhetoric. She weaves in figurative language, dramatic repetition, and threads of language that evoke emotion and sympathy from the audience. Her appeals to logos and pathos work together to inspire the listener to action. Her speech is ultimately successful not because of one tricky element, but because it masterfully incorporates them all.

Book Communism: State Mandated Reading Lists

A favorite activity of pundits and the fear-mongering news machine is to lampoon the American educational system. This is a veritable gold mine for attracting viewers; where reporters shout out test scores and restate the same studies over and over, often comparing the United States to Europe and Asia, and finding the United States lacking. One of the differences between our educational system and the “superior” educations that Europeans receive is that they use a standard canon of books that all students must read; while American teachers still maintain the autonomy to choose what books they want to teach. Although many look for holes in this plan, as it is now standard to do, the independence allowed by choosing reading lists allows for the organic evolution of class discussion and a wider availability of reading than a limited and narrow list of standard books. This system repeats a common theme in American education that is favorable – regardless of what the news machine likes to tell the public –a more encompassing system less married to standardized testing model.

            With the ability to create their own reading lists, American teachers can quickly and nimbly adapt their courses to current issues.  Because they do not have to appeal to a central bureaucratic body, the teachers could, for instance, introduce books that relate to modern issues such as the globalization of communication networks and relationships. The study of literature is not supposed to be a boring recitation of texts that no longer relate to modern society; instead it should be a time for students to study human interactions and relationships, a truly valuable activity that is too often lacking in curriculums solely focused on standardized testing. Additionally, this capability for change reflects modern trends of media consumption, where books are often consumed digitally and at a different level of understanding then in the staid world of print sources (Source F). The freedom to adapt their reading lists gives teachers the power to evolve and change.                    

  Not only are diverse and variable reading lists more capable of adapting to modern conditions, they also are more global than the anthologies and standardized reading lists. A photo of a common textbook opens with the title World Masterpieces. But this title is inherently lacking; it is simply impossible for the masterpieces of literature to be held in something so limiting as a textbook (Source D). This image reflects and represents how narrow state mandated reading lists are. With the ability to choose which books they want, teachers can choose “masterpieces” as varied as age-old texts like Beowulf, to modern giants like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Not only do anthologies and standard reading canons eliminate a large majority of literature, they are also so widely scrutinized that they often end up being the run of the mill, safe choices, and often cut out crucial but controversial parts of text because of the need to appeal to the country at large. For example, Clayton Eshleman, a professor at Eastern Michigan University teaches the whole of one of Walt Whitman’s poems, even though the specific passage is often axed by editors because of sexual themes (Source C). Although the literary community at large would agree that Walt Whitman is a masterful Romanticist poet, they are all too willing to cut out passages that they deem too “edgy.” Thus, the major problem with required anthologies is that they can in no way represent the vanguard of literature; instead they are relegated to the safe and the accepted.

            At the heart of this issue is the fear that the American educational system is failing. And while there are definitely aspects that need improvement, we cannot eliminate all of what makes the system unique. Because frankly, there is one thing that works. Just because it is different than the European and Asian model does not mean that is wrong. Freedom and variability in reading lists are useful tools for teachers because they allow for a class to be able to evolve and adapt to current issues. They let reading happen on a global scale, without being married to a narrow list of “classics.” This autonomy may not seem important in the overall swamp that is education, but it is a necessary one none-the-less.

           

Space: A Necessary Fronteir

When America looked up to the skies in 1969 they did not simply see a vast expanse of unreachable and untouchable blue – for the first time in human history they saw something that they could reach out and touch. Human limits suddenly became breakable; if it is possible to overcome everything we have ever known about out physical world and put a man on the moon, then what could the human race not do? That one image of Neil Armstrong inspired a generation of Americans, in both practical and psychological realms. It motivated Americans to apply themselves to math and science, to further technology, and to create a precedent for international cooperation and collaboration. These consequences are vital to the evolution of society and technology, for this reason, space exploration must continue. Although people often incorrectly cite that NASA is sucking funds that need to be used for “real world issues”, these funds represent the best investment that America – and the world – can make in her future.

            The quickest claim that anti-space exploration advocates will jump on is that it is unnecessary cost. They reach for the highest statistic that they can find in order to shock the public into agreeing with them. But, put in context, the amount of government funds dedicated to NASA is relatively miniscule. In 2006, the government estimated that only a fraction of .06 cents for every dollar of government spending was actually spent of space research (Source C). This small amount that is spent is actually vital to the economy – in fact it is one of the best investments America can make. David Livingston, in “Is Space Exploration worth the Cost?” explains only some of the everyday benefits for space exploration, “The money that is spent goes to manufacturing, research and development, salaries, benefits, insurance companies, doctors, teachers, scientists, students, blue- and white-collar workers, and corporations and businesses both large and small.”(Source A). These funds are so well dispersed into the economy that they touch every citizen in some way.

            Not only is the direct economic benefit relevant to American life, but it has a profound effect on the American psyche. The space race with Russia during the 1960’s caused an increased focus on mathematics and science in American education. Calculus began to be part of the standard mathematics track, in an attempt to get more students who would one day be able to be “rocket scientists.” Additionally, this renewed focus on technology meant that young kids had new heroes in physicists and astronauts like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Suddenly academic stars, not just sports stars, were cool. As David Livingston articulates, “We can give hope and provide inspiration for our youngsters to grow up, do the schoolwork, and accept the challenges that await them to make our world even better.”

            Space exploration is not just good for internal American affairs, but for the international community at large. By working together for a larger goal, to better understand our universe, the international community can be strengthened. As we move on from putting a man on the moon, the race has become a relay. International cooperation is now the future of space exploration, as evidenced by the success of the international space station. And perhaps more importantly, space exploration could create a stronger push for peace over war when viewing international politics. Viewed from space, the political boundaries and walls that we as nations put up become meaningless (Source E). We all share the earth, and space exploration is the strongest reminder of that.

            It is all to easy to push aside space exploration as a waste of money, and forget about it in the face of escalating national debt. But this is a mistake. Investing in space technologies is the strongest way to insure a bright future for America and the earth as a whole. While it is not an immediate payoff, the benefits of this investment pay out decades into the future. The increased childhood focus on education and increased peace among nations are only a few of the critical outcomes to space exploration. As citizens of the earth, we should not look at space as a luxury for times of financial success, but as a critical step for a future of financial success.