What is the Purpose of School?

    When the United States became a country unto itself school was something that was usually taught by the local pastor or preacher. It mixed religion with learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. Schools were what set apart the wealthy upper class and the poor working class. Girls were taught to be perfect wives that raised the children and supported their husbands. Meanwhile, the boys were taught and prepared for college. 

    It wasn’t until the 1840s that Thomas Jefferson and Horace Mann decided that schools needed to be separate from religion. They wanted to make an education system that was free and open to all genders and classes. This was to “create better citizens and a culturally uniform American society” (Whitmer).

 

    Looking at schools today they are far different than what our founding fathers originally thought and planned out for society. Schools have now become a place that not only teaches students their reading, writing, and arithmetic but also gives the social and emotional learning that they are not getting elsewhere. Public schools are a place where children are taught to make friends and socialize. 

    With the Covid pandemic of 2020 when schools were forced to shut down it became glaringly obvious that schools, in fact, do so much more than just teach students the basics. Schools have found ways to feed students and even those too young to enter the school system. Many schools provided breakfast and lunches to the students for the remainder of the 2020 school year, and the following summer, which carried over into the 2020-2021 school year. Schools had to provide internet services to the students that remotely learned during that time through hotspots. Stephen Sawchuk made the greatest statement about students in schools in his article “What is the Purpose of School?” when he said, “students will face difficulty learning if they are not fed, clothed, and nurtured” (Sawchuk). Thus schools became food pantries, found ways through programs such as Communities in Schools that would be able to provide necessary clothing to the students, and teachers became like second parents giving love and a feeling of safety to their students.

    Schools have taken on so many different aspects of the education system for children in the United States. Things can always change for the better, but it will take time. Prince EA, a civil rights activist from St. Louis, MO really put it into perspective when he said, “Children are twenty percent of our population, but they are one hundred percent our future” (EA). Knowing that statistics alone should make Americans wonder about what they want the future of America to be. Change starts with the children and they need to be taught in a way that will allow for this change to take place.

Works Cited:

EA, Prince. “I Sued the School System (2023).” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Sept. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqTTojTija8&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fcanvas.txstate.edu%2Fcourses%2F2046940%2Fpages%2Ftask-1-m2-video-break%3Fmodule_item_id%3D94857595&feature=emb_imp_woyt. 

Sawchuk, Stephen. “What Is the Purpose of School?” What Is the Purpose of School?, Education Week, 23 Sept. 2021, https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/what-is-the-purpose-of-school/2021/09. 

Whitmer, Phil. “What Were the Original Goals and Purpose of the American Education System?” What Were the Original Goals and Purpose of the American Education System?, 30 June 2020, https://classroom.synonym.com/were-purpose-american-education-system-8052005.html.

The Dream of Teaching

    I have always dreamed of being a teacher. I pretended I was a teacher for my little sister and all of my dolls growing up. I didn’t grow up with very much money in my family so we never traveled anywhere. My mom would always tell us, kids, “The only way you will travel the world is through a book.” So we read all of the time. In 6th grade, I had been an aide for the Librarian and would spend my recesses in the library re-shelving books. By the time I graduated from high school, I had been enrolled at ten different schools from kindergarten to my senior year. When I was able to find a position within a school I was able to show the students that no matter what hardships we face in life we could always find a way to learn and grow from them. The best part about being a teacher is that students will remember you for life.

    I started working with my children’s school with the after-school program and worked my way up to being an intervention paraprofessional at Elgin Middle School. I supported the ELA department with intervention support. During the first half of the year, I would push into classes and support small groups inside the class. After the holiday break and the new semester started I would change to small group STAAR prep. This gave me a chance to take what the students were learning inside their ELA/R classes and bring it more focused to a small group instead of a whole class. I did this for three years while I attended Austin Community College. Right now I work at Neidig Elementary School as an Early Childhood Literacy Specialist. I work with kindergarten to second grade teaching them the basics of letter sounds all the way up to reading fluency. This will be my second year in the position. This position has given me a chance to see the art of reading from a very basic start. I am currently in my second semester at Texas State University majoring in Education Instruction in ELA/R and Social Studies for grades 4 to 8. My love for reading and history inspired me to enter into this subject and my absolute love for the pre-teen/early teen years made me decide to go with the middle school ages. I love their sarcasm, they want to be a grown-up, but still want to learn and have fun at school.