Recitation and Report Literacy

I was very surprised while reading this article. There were many new things I learned about education and how the subject of English came to be established in public schools. Teachers used to make their students do some crazy things. Mouth movement exercises seem to have no purpose. Memorization and recitation were key to the classroom. I was thinking about how things like "'directory' information- street signs, the population of a city, addresses of businesses, the distance to a railroad, [and] 'cures' for colds"(67) needed to be known. Today, with technology, all one needs to do is type a few key words into a search engine. Then, this information needed to be known.

Something that really bothered me about the reading was the seating arrangements. The text states, "teachers sorted their students by seating them in rank order by 'achievement'" (69). I feel bad for the students who were placed towards the back of the classroom. They were known to be the "not smart" ones in the classroom. Also, I was not happy when I read that high school was mainly for white males who came from wealthy backgrounds. This is because these were the children who had parents who"often had the resources to buy their children books, tutors, and post-high school opportunities" (69).

Teachers also did not seem to take their jobs very seriously. Teachers allowed students to complete reading assignments as long as their students attempted to pronounce words. Comprehension played no part in the classroom assessments. Some teachers chose not to correct wrong pronunciation (69). So... my question is, what exactly were the teachers doing?

Teachers also assumed students could only write something about what they had previously read (72). So, this left room for no creative writing. The imagination and the free writing process were ignored. I cannot imagine an English classroom today without students having the freedom to express themselves and use their creativity.

Student graduation rates were terrible. About two out of every one hundred students graduated from high school (74). I guess I cannot blame these students though. This is because the school's bragged about their high dropout rates. The text claims, "students were pushed out, especially during the secondary school years" (89).

The class sizes were insane! Many teachers had over one hundred students per classroom (75). Teachers today complain about having around thirty students. How could there be any type of individual attention for students when there was one teacher per one hundred students?

The text also talked about how "at-risk students are rarely asked to do what their more privileged peers routinely do" (80). Today, we have these students in classes with all other types of students. There are opportunities for these at-risk students to succeed and to do projects all of the other students do.

On page 84, I learned about the beginning of NCTE. This was interesting to me because next year will be the 100th year anniversary.

The article states, "literary critics argued that for college prep students, the complexities of the modern world required that human beings be capable of tolerating ambiguity in meaning and avoiding the hubris of certainty in meaning"(91). This was a step closer to what I think should be included in the classroom. I do think this kind of teaching should be included for all types of students because it allows for critical thinking.

There was something else that surprised me in the text. Some people thought writing quality could be learned by students in a few days (94). Therefore, there was not much time spent on writing.

Something good for education that was discussed was the ideas that students should learn the skills in high school they will need in the working world (110). From this need came the ideas for students to work in groups and also use devices such as calculators during math class.

Overall, this text taught me a lot about schools during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I am very grateful that there have been so many changes in education.