Thursday, November 20, 2008
Part three
“If a man wishes to rid himself of a feeling of unbearable oppression, he may have to take hashish.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of culture), this shows the sheer unbalanced opinions of the Educational system in that most of the people who the Educational system teaches the students about or who they tell the students to write like have taken drugs. This has to be a form of oppression in that when teachers (mostly English Teachers, Music Teachers, Art Teachers, etc.) tell the students how great some of these people were and show all the so called wondrous works that these people created and one looks at the sheer difference in the quality of work that that same person did without drugs and then the quality of the work that that same person has done with the drugs it almost makes it sound like a subversive drug ad in that the majority of the time the best works that person has done were done when that person was on drugs. Then to add even more confusion the same educational system has multiple antidrug campaigns, sometimes it is even the same teachers who told how that person created all these wondrous things while on drugs. Seriously I know drugs mess people up, you know drugs mess people up, and the people sitting around you know drugs are bad, but yet has anyone told the Educators? It is almost has if they want to subversively tell students you will never amount to these people while overtly telling us we should write like those people, this has to be a case of oppression by confusion at the very least. The best solution I could come up with is to simply get rid of either those works that were created while the person was on drugs or simply make the drug campaigns not taught by those who speak of the people who did wondrous things while on drugs because then it just nullifies the whole thing.
To clarify this point let us look to a class that I recently was observing where the teacher was preaching about how great a person like Thomas Edison, Ben Franklin, or Aldous Huxley were, and that these people are the pinnacle of what we should strive to achieve for. I know these people are great people, I have spent countless hours learning about these people but yet about a half hour later the teacher put up a poster showing the founding fathers in an Anti-drug poster.
The tunnel first appeared in 1997, when it was developed at Western Illinois University with the purpose of being "a way to bring the realities of oppression into a full sensory experiential manner," according to a Residence Life newsletter.
“We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.” (Confucius, China's most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist) This statement can show the sheer uncaringness that usually accompanies the showings of emotions in the educational system. This is most often shown in the grade schools where even the slightest thing can turn that first grader into a blubbering and whining baby. To provide a point most students until possibly fifth grade will become overly emotional at the first sign of something that invokes even the slightest emotional response (such as all of those ‘heart warming’ animal movies (i.e. Babe, Shiloh, Free Willy, etc.). This overly emotional responsiveness leads educators to begin to care less and less until those students once grown have learned it is better to suppress or oppress their feelings since no one cared when they were young that no one would really give a care about what emotions they were feeling and so if they expressed those emotions (in nondestructive ways, because if they did destroy, maim, decimate, explode, and all those other adjectives that go along with those quote unquote “Vandals” or “Ruffians” or even “Rapscallions” they would get attention but in a negative way) then those same overlooked people could make the educated guess that no one would really care how they expressed themselves as long as they did not ‘bug the educator’. But yet these same individuals would unfortunately be wrong. Those same educators who consoled countless students saying ‘death is a natural part of life’ are ironically offended by the appearance of a Skull or Tombstone on a shirt or jacket.
To clarify this point let us look to a class that I recently was observing where the teacher was preaching about how great a person like Thomas Edison, Ben Franklin, or Aldous Huxley were, and that these people are the pinnacle of what we should strive to achieve for. I know these people are great people, I have spent countless hours learning about these people but yet about a half hour later the teacher put up a poster showing the founding fathers in an Anti-drug poster.
The tunnel first appeared in 1997, when it was developed at Western Illinois University with the purpose of being "a way to bring the realities of oppression into a full sensory experiential manner," according to a Residence Life newsletter.
“We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.” (Confucius, China's most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist) This statement can show the sheer uncaringness that usually accompanies the showings of emotions in the educational system. This is most often shown in the grade schools where even the slightest thing can turn that first grader into a blubbering and whining baby. To provide a point most students until possibly fifth grade will become overly emotional at the first sign of something that invokes even the slightest emotional response (such as all of those ‘heart warming’ animal movies (i.e. Babe, Shiloh, Free Willy, etc.). This overly emotional responsiveness leads educators to begin to care less and less until those students once grown have learned it is better to suppress or oppress their feelings since no one cared when they were young that no one would really give a care about what emotions they were feeling and so if they expressed those emotions (in nondestructive ways, because if they did destroy, maim, decimate, explode, and all those other adjectives that go along with those quote unquote “Vandals” or “Ruffians” or even “Rapscallions” they would get attention but in a negative way) then those same overlooked people could make the educated guess that no one would really care how they expressed themselves as long as they did not ‘bug the educator’. But yet these same individuals would unfortunately be wrong. Those same educators who consoled countless students saying ‘death is a natural part of life’ are ironically offended by the appearance of a Skull or Tombstone on a shirt or jacket.
Part two
"Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils." ((Louis) Hector Berlioz), this ties in the theme of oppression in Education in that Time may be the greatest teacher ever but yet the does not help in the feeling of oppression that in the school system. This is due to that fact that those teachers want you to learn that subject in the time allowed by the school board, about nine months or so. This causes many problems for those who struggle near the beginning of the class in that either the teacher will keep moving ahead with you staying behind the entire year or the whole class being held back until that one student begins to comprehend the basic principles of what is happening. However the opposite is true should the student fail in the last month and a half or so in that by that time if a student begins to no longer comprehend the work the teacher would either figure that it is no longer their problem (with the testing to receive funding usually completed at this time) or that student would use all the collected knowledge needed to simply fake his or her way through it. The oppressive nature of the time line of Education is one that was created with the preconceived thought that all the students would actually utilize time out of class to teach themselves if they do not understand a certain subject. While this thought is a good one and one that enviably becomes a necessity in the higher levels of education (freshmen year of high school and beyond) it is thought of as a waste of time in the eyes of the lower levels of education (eighth grade and below) with the lower the grade level the less time one will find a student actively studying unless being told/forced to by a parent.
Rossivel Reid, a tour guide and geological engineering sophomore, said she thinks the event is amazing because it shows what it is like to be oppressed. "It is very emotional and intense," Reid said. "Last year I was with my girlfriend and the actors got to her really bad. We had to skip rooms."
Rossivel Reid, a tour guide and geological engineering sophomore, said she thinks the event is amazing because it shows what it is like to be oppressed. "It is very emotional and intense," Reid said. "Last year I was with my girlfriend and the actors got to her really bad. We had to skip rooms."
Part one
Tony Kelsey COM-101
By the Beard of Education
As students walk into a dark, cramped room in the basement of Kaibab-Huachuca Residence Hall, the pleas of a young female begin to waft through the air. The lights flicker on as two young men scream "faggot!" into the face of a third.
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy” (James Madison, 4th President of the United States), this quote is one that has very high significance in this modern day era where governments are removing liberties in the pursuit of fighting a foreign enemy, an enemy that has become so terrifying that many have taken what was once a literal enemy and turned that image in to a generalization of a word “Terrorism”. This applies to the concept of Education in the way that our Educational system has become so oppressed with the pursuit of freedom that the United States that we are whole heartedly willing to surrender our liberties so that some overly scared group of people can feel safe knowing that everyone is now a suspect and no one is above the suspicion. The Educational aspect of this is that the oppressive nature of schooling has become rampant in the pursuit to stamp out a similar generalization “Stupidity”, this is due to the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ in that now schools are making the same statements repeatedly in an attempt to stamp out this generalization in a blatant attempt in the pursuit of not teaching, but rather a pursuit of funding. This quest for funding forces students in to a oppressive position in that if they fail rather than have the teacher pile on extra work so that the student would understand the subject better the student would rather merely regurgitate answers and facts so that the teacher believes that that student is learning when in fact that student is merely become more and more informed on the ways to cheat the system.
This scenario is one of many that were displayed last night at the ninth annual Tunnel of Oppression, an event organized by Residence Life's elMundo Diversity Initiatives to show students examples of injustices in society.
By the Beard of Education
As students walk into a dark, cramped room in the basement of Kaibab-Huachuca Residence Hall, the pleas of a young female begin to waft through the air. The lights flicker on as two young men scream "faggot!" into the face of a third.
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy” (James Madison, 4th President of the United States), this quote is one that has very high significance in this modern day era where governments are removing liberties in the pursuit of fighting a foreign enemy, an enemy that has become so terrifying that many have taken what was once a literal enemy and turned that image in to a generalization of a word “Terrorism”. This applies to the concept of Education in the way that our Educational system has become so oppressed with the pursuit of freedom that the United States that we are whole heartedly willing to surrender our liberties so that some overly scared group of people can feel safe knowing that everyone is now a suspect and no one is above the suspicion. The Educational aspect of this is that the oppressive nature of schooling has become rampant in the pursuit to stamp out a similar generalization “Stupidity”, this is due to the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ in that now schools are making the same statements repeatedly in an attempt to stamp out this generalization in a blatant attempt in the pursuit of not teaching, but rather a pursuit of funding. This quest for funding forces students in to a oppressive position in that if they fail rather than have the teacher pile on extra work so that the student would understand the subject better the student would rather merely regurgitate answers and facts so that the teacher believes that that student is learning when in fact that student is merely become more and more informed on the ways to cheat the system.
This scenario is one of many that were displayed last night at the ninth annual Tunnel of Oppression, an event organized by Residence Life's elMundo Diversity Initiatives to show students examples of injustices in society.
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