Zhou 1

Kevin Zhou
Mrs. Thompson
AP Lang, Block 2, Skinny A
November 1st, 2014
Draft 1
IJWBA Paper Draft
I Just Want to Be Average and James Baldwins A Talk to Teachers share many similar
thoughts on the flawed educational system. The thoughts expressed by Baldwin in how flawed the
educational system is shown in action in Mike Roses essay.
James Baldwin states that the fundamental goal of education is to create an individual
capable of making decision for himself, one that is coherent. This citizen is able to undergo through
series of informational data sets to then be able to say to himself, This is black or white. This ideal
citizen that the educational system should aim to create is one that ends up being a leader, either in of
political, scientific, or sociological thought. Throughout history, mankind has always had these
individuals of great integrity who step outside the accepted norm and challenge the thought of the day,
such as Newton, Einstein, Galileo, da Vinci, etc. Through Mike Roses opulent essay, it is evident that the
educational system tries to maintain some sort of standard. However, when these standards are not met
by students, rather than trying to help them, the educational system just throws them away. Students are
told to develop hypotheses and troubleshoot [a problem]. However, when they fail to perform this basic
task, the educational system fails in fixing the problem. These expectations, if met, would produce
individuals capable of leading a progressive society, where citizens are advancing mankind and breaking
the norms set by precedent discoveries. This type of society is the one that the men mentioned previously
helped to create.

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Unfortunately and fortunately, these standards are often not met. Society sticks to its norms. A
society needs a population of insipid sheep, who live their life never questioning the world around them
and who go through life living as they are told. These sheep live the norm established by previous
innovations. However, there needs to be a portion that does ask the right questions, the ones who, rather
than seeing things the way they are and asking why, dream things that never were and ask why not.
Baldwins recognizes how society actually functions, stating that we have no need for a population filled
with high thinking individuals, and recognizing that society would fail to function if there werent those
there to simply obey the rules. Mike Rose was intended to become one of these sheep, the ones that
dont contribute to society, the ones that impede progress. They fall into peer pressure and simply do
what others do. Students are placed through series of tests for placement to understand their
standardized skills. Our society and educational system lacks the great efforts of understanding the
individual based on their individual skills or thoughts, but are instead judged by how well the student next
to him is. The lack of individualization in the system retards the progress and spurt of ingenuity that
would create an ideal society.