Running head: PURPOSE OF SCHOOLING FINAL PAPER

Purpose of Schooling Final Paper

Kyle Fowler
Colorado State University

The first paper on the purpose of schooling in the United States focused much more on
exploring creativity in the classroom and the positives of educational advancements. The topics
of deculturalization and segregation were not discussed, and neither were the ideas of teaching
multiculturalism and diversity. The largest shift in the material, however, comes from the
information on federal school policies. Policies were pretty near the forefront of this essay while
the first essay did not discuss these issues, as their information was not well known at the time.
Another change in information was in the question of how the current educational system
preserves the existing order set up decades ago. The previous essay discusses issues of gender
roles and the perpetuation of stereotypes, on specifically the young children, and their negative
impact on society. This essay, however, focuses on the ideals of segregation and deculturalization
through the current educational process, especially the English Language Learners in public
schools. Overall, this essay reflects views more on segregation and loss of culture, rather than
creativity and stereotypes as was in the beginning essay.

PURPOSE OF SCHOOLING FINAL PAPER

The history of the educational system in the United States has been full of trial and error,
leading to some vast improvements to education, but also causing major controversy and
complications for the system as a whole. With the changes brought forth through time, the
purpose of schooling has changed greatly since its initial creation. This new purpose for
education leaves responsibility to the teachers to propel each of their students forward leaps and
bounds despite the fact they have to comply with heavy standards, while still continuing the
existing oppressive order of education, without enough variability in classroom structure to
really challenge the past purposes of education.
Historically, the purpose of education was to take non-European cultures and smother
their expression in order to fit into the dominant societys culture (Spring, 2013). Currently,
though it is argued that these ideals still exist in education, the purpose of schooling has changed
to create the best and brightest students in every school in the United States. This is done out of
both want and necessity. Though teachers and schools want their students to be successful and
have high achievements during their academic careers, they do not want their school to be
considered failing. Policies like No Child Left Behind perpetuate this fear in schools and
educators by penalizing those who are not reaching an unobtainable goal on standardized tests
(Darling-Hammond, 2007). Therefore, the purpose of education in the United States is shifting
into a teach for the test mentality.
Ideally, school should be a place where diversity and multiculturalism and welcomed and
openly discussed, with every student having equal opportunity in their education. Realistically,
the purpose of schools is to educate the students to the best of the schools ability, which depends
on the location and funding given to the institution. Either way, the purpose of schools should be

PURPOSE OF SCHOOLING FINAL PAPER

to educate every student with the best available instructors, who are passionate about what they
do, in the best environments possible, along with funding that will fit the needs of each school
accordingly. All while simultaneously creating a safe environment for you and your students to
create meaningful relationships that promote diversity and acceptance.
The role of the teacher to fulfill this purpose is not an easy task. As a future educator, my
role will have to be to creatively incorporate all of these aspects into my classroom each day that
I go to work. Besides just trying to incorporate all of these aspects into my teaching, I also have
to be good at it. I will have to get my students to all have high enough scores on standardized
tests so I do not get labeled as a failing teacher, and hope that the other teachers in the building
did a good enough job so the school itself does not get labeled as failing. This is so there would
be no loss of finances for our school due to groups of students not scoring at a high enough
proficiency level (Summary, 2004). Besides the academic aspect of being a teacher, there is an
emotional and relationship-based side of teaching.
These relationships that you make as a teacher are vital for your success and your
students success. Getting to know your students will create a safe environment for them to
express their thoughts and to learn effectively. These relationships are also built through
instruction like teaching lessons with elements of multiculturalism or diversity. Creating these
relationships and adding these multiple elements of education, like diversity and
multiculturalism, will create active empathetic learners in a classroom that lead to strong
academic progress for the students.
The purpose of schooling in the United States is also impacted by the existing order. One
facet of this existing order is the aspect of creating a group of other within schools. This is
perpetuated by policies like No Child Left Behind where groups like African Americans or

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students with special needs are put into these labeled categories and expected to perform at a
certain level of proficiency that is sometimes unobtainable given the schools student population,
or resources based on their previous years of testing (Bode & Nieto, 2012). This labeling of
specific groups of students also creates conflict within the educational community about equality
of individuals and their education due to some groups of students receiving less or worse
education based on opportunity or geographic location.
There are also situations of deculturalization, like what was seen at the founding of the
educational system, in current classrooms regarding English Language Learner (ELL) students.
Educational institutions are taking these learners that are learning the foundation of the English
language, and hindering their original cultural language. While this is done so both the students
and the instructors are able to effectively communicate with one another, it has been argued that
language is seen as more of an obstacle than an opportunity to help the classroom embrace
diversity and multiculturalism with certain teacher instruction. This leads into the aspect of the
lack of multicultural education in classrooms. Multiple perspectives are rarely taught to students
leaving education very black and white with little cultural background for the students to base
their knowledge (Bode & Nieto, 2012).
This labeling continues in areas like class separation. For decades, the only relation
between students in each grade level was their age, not so much their ability (RSA, 2010). There
are exceptions to this rule like the small proportion of students that get held back from moving
up grade levels, but this is not the case for the majority of students. Keeping students together
based solely on their age leaves a lot of differentiation in the area of student achievement; so
students could be having their growth hindered by this traditional view of education.

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Schooling seemingly oppressive ideals can be changed with drastic transformations. This
shift would come with the changing of school policies. Many try to change the classrooms at the
teacher level, but teachers are constantly bombarded with many obstacles such as having to
prepare students for standardized testing, while teaching the state standards for their classes, and
making relationships with their students, while not forgetting to teach multiculturalism and
acknowledging diversity, but not so much that it becomes an oddity. However, to achieve real
change within the schooling system, federal and state policies have to be modified in order to
reach a wide range of schools.
Federal policies like No Child Left Behind, and similarly Race to the Top, have received
much criticism due to their innate othering of students due to standardized test scores, and
penalizes schools for not achieving a statistically unobtainable proficiency level for their students
(Darling-Hammond, 2007). The over-arching hope is that these policies will change or be
replaced so that the ideas of labeling groups of students would cease, and students would receive
accurate levels of education based on their past achievement in order to help their academic
career rather than hurt their success. These changes will only come with change made at a higher
level than the teachers in order to reach the larger educational system.
The purpose of schooling throughout history has given the impression like it has changed
significantly, however it seems as if the opposite is true. Deculturalization and labeling different
groups of students based solely on their race/ethnicity or their mental impairments still exists and
continues past trends seen throughout the history of education. While current and future teachers
can help ease this controversy through their teaching style and incorporating aspects like
multiculturalism into their lessons, it is ultimately up to the policy makers to ensure drastic,
lasting changes in the educational system in the United States.

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References
Bode, P., Nieto, S. (2012). Structure and organizational issues in classrooms and schools. In V. C.
Kelly (Eds.), C. Maxine (Eds.), Affirming Diversity The Sociopolitical Context of
Multicultural Education (pp. 108 155). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Bode, P., Nieto, S. (2012). Understanding student learning and school achievement. In V. C.
Kelly (Eds.), C. Maxine (Eds.), Affirming Diversity The Sociopolitical Context of
Multicultural Education (pp. 254 293). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2007). Race, inequality, and educational accountability: the irony of no
child left behind. Race Ethnicity and Education, 10. Retrieved from
https://ramct.colostate.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=
%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id
%3D_29136_1%26url%3D
RSA, T. [The RSA]. (October 14, 2010). RSA Animate Changing Education Paradigms. [Video
file]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=zDZFcDGpL4U
Spring, J. (2013). Resegregation of american schools in a post racial society. In R. Michael
(Eds.), Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality a Brief History of the Education
of Dominate Cultures in the United States (pp. 139 162). New York, NY. McGraw-Hill
Companies, Inc.
Summary, E. (2004). Executive summary archived information. U.S. Department of Education.
Retrieved from
http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/execsumm.html

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Schooling in the United States

Schooling in the United States has both evolved and devolved over the course of human
history. From passing down teaching from word of mouth to a, what we see as traditional,
classroom setting. With this development from hundreds of years of education, there have been
countless reasons as to why students go to a specialized building to gain the knowledge that is to
be used for their future existence. The purpose of schooling has changed, the role of the teacher
has been demeaned and ridiculed, and the educational system has both enforced and transformed
the existing way in which traditions have been done in various societies.
Starting off, the purpose of education was, simply, to pass down the knowledge that one
had to another. Whether this be back in the days of Neanderthals where the traditions of hunting
and gathering were passed down multiple generations or today where areas of expertise are told
to the younger generations in order to keep certain crafts or ideas alive. More often than not
today, the educational system is there to get students to learn the basics of education (reading,
writing, arithmetic, science, etc.) while simultaneously gaining advanced test-taking skills in
order to show the progress that schools are making toward creating a more intelligent youth.
Where today the main goal is to see improved and ideal test scores to measure the intelligence
and grit of todays students, the true purpose to teach is to learn. To explore ones educational
horizons and become a better intellectual through guided exploration of various subject matter.
To measure a childs and a schools worth by a solitary test score seems ludicrous when the
measure for intelligence goes much further than surface level.
Personally, as a future teacher, in order to fulfill that role to the best of my ability is to
promote creativity within my classroom where there is more of a focus on exploration rather than
test taking strategy. There will of course be days where there are practice tests and monotonous

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question/answer formats, as that is the society that we live in. The point is to make that a
priority for the children to take pride in the tests to show their own intelligence but also focus on
the multiple other intelligences in which an individual can be measured with or areas of progress
that cannot or are not measured through a fill in the bubble exam.
As for this existing order that exists within our society, students are taught at a very
young age the roles which are apparent throughout a society. Whether this be the careers that are
traditionally male or female or the modes of thinking that so many others have (democracy being
considered the most desirable form of government). While these systems may not have negative
connotations within our society, these impressionable children are still being ingrained with
knowledge that is hard or impossible to change. This keeps the founding ideas of a society more
concrete.
Conversely, this can mean that teachers and their students can change what is considered
the norm of societal standards. By teaching more progressive material such as showing males
as nurses and teachers rather than just females and vice versa with females as engineers or
politicians, the existing order can be changed or, if nothing else, altered in a way that gives
momentum to more informative and open-minded thinking in the younger generations. This
alternative method of thinking can change the existing order in a different direction which, good
or bad, improves creating thinking and problem solving toward current social problems.
While education has improved leaps and bounds from what started as a very fundamental
way of communication between individuals, there is still so much to be built upon in order for
future and current students to gain the best in their education. Whether this be teaching or
breaking the existing norms that are placed in our society to form progressive and improvised
thinking or changing how teachers view the purpose of education within their classrooms, setting

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a change in motion from the previously taught material. No road is perfect and there is no
exception to the road to a perfect system to teach. Experimentation and commitment to failure
is the only way in which a high tier of learning can be reached.

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