We are all students here. I’m a student. You’re a student. We are the ones who first-hand experience the effects of the education system, we are the ones who will grow up is this world and shape the future. Hypothetically, though. Question yourselves, do you really feel as if you have the motivation or the perseverance to do anything worthwhile? Are we even bought up to feel this way? Today I am going to discuss the flaws of the education system, and whether it allows us to feel valued as people.
1. Bandage up my eye with me own history: Metaphor here Agard sees our educations system as a hangover from colonisation, believes it blinds him to the truth and eradicates his history. The fairy tales show that the whitewashing of education happens from childhood. -a post colonist may note that this is an impact of colonisation. His culture is underrepresented in education system.
Makes me think of what’s in our education system. I recognise the subjects we study give us skills needed, but Institutionalised racism within system
Understandable we only learn about British history, but do we really learn all of it. Colonisation, like in the poem agard, a post colonist, hints at. The British role in slavery in yr. 9 we mainly focused on the American part, we mustn’t British had a role.
We learn about the holocaust a significant and important event in the world history, but even then, it paints a good picture of the British. We learn about Britain as triumphant/strong so we can perceive it that way
The physics exam on Eid day, I remember my family getting up early that day we to get ready for Eid, my brother to get ready for a difficult exam. this year we are going to have exams on Eid and during Ramadan
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2. Blind me to me own identity: Use of personal pronouns suggest he takes pride in his own culture, and he uses the Caribbean style to give full expression to the voice of his homeland, demonstrates the importance of self-defining, makes me think are we able to do the same/whether we have a voice/ whether we are able to express that voice. We are stripped of our identity and just do what we are told, like how Agard feels happens to him in poem
Mental health
Although schools have started to acknowledge this issue, I question to what extent do they really take it seriously, students are still forced to do speeches and presentations even if they have social anxiety/panic attacks/ or just physically can’t there doesn’t need to be a reason. Recent research suggests that as many as 1 in 6 young people will experience an anxiety condition at some point in their lives. I know at least 2 people who have been reduced to tears standing up in front of everyone because of this very oral assessment. I understand we need the skills for later life but I don’t understand the lack of awareness/help for things like social anxiety.
Loss of identity
Just as agard discusses in poem he feels a loss of identity, we too have a lack of identity in this system. How many times have you felt sick to your stomach/stressed to the point of tears/lost/empty/how they say your grades don’t define you yet it really feels like they do. We have to be study machines or else we’re slacking. We have to be number one or else we’re falling behind. They tell us just to put in more effort/ work harder as if what we’re already doing isn’t enough. Even friends turn on each other to become the top student, losing the ability to socialise. On the other side of the spectrum as well, for the students at the bottom, they make one mistake and it’s the end for them, they don’t receive the help that is required to help build them up again. They build borders between us and turn education into a competition. They say that we should be feeling happy and privileged, then how do they explain our struggle
3. Dem tell me: Agard presents his frustrations at authority.
I feel frustration at the system.
We don’t lean life skills like how to do taxes,
Standardised testing-I recognise importance- tracking progress- so on, but only measure achievement at one point in time. gcse’s consider one moment of our entire two years we’ve spent preparing for it. Don’t consider external influences like having an off day/a depressive episode/lack of sleep yet it determines our whole grade/it represents our school life.
Removal of course work, fact it was removed in computer science just a few months before the exams for 2018 students. Exams just test us on our memorisation. It makes us into robots just processing this information. And the fact that only such a small percentage of us get recognised and rewarded for our efforts, we feel as if we’re not enough, and our work ethic starts to reflect this and we say things like I can’t do it and I don’t know anything. Most of the time the situation is that we take gcse’s to take a level to go to university to get a degree to get a high paid job instead of a low paid one. Not everyone is built to excel at academics and kids are crumbling at an early age at the hands of this elitism
4. But now I checking out my own history I carving out me identity: The repetition of the personal pronoun I in the last two lines/Caribbean style language – he finds his own traditions in the form of writing finding his own history self-defining himself by himself.
Makes me think while education teaches us many things it forgets to teach us to be people with passions and identity. We’re left to pick up the pieces we were torn apart too.
However, I want to say to everyone, we will find our identities and make our histories just not now, while we’re young and in this system. We, like agard, can undermine this system, find our voices, take back our individuality, and reach our potentials, go further even. The British education system is flawed in the fact that although it is designed and built for students it does not respect us. I believe it is up to us to build a society where everyone feels valued and is respected.
But then we will move on to societies systems and lose out identities there the whole world is corrupt capitalism s shit fuck this
And I aint using pathos or egos coz I don’t want to talk about myself in front of you morons and what are emotions also fuck numbers peace out homies mic drop
