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Under the presidential administration of George H. Bush in 2001, a simultaneously revolutionary as well as detrimental piece of legislation was enacted which was made hoping to dramatically turn around the schooling system in America. This was the first amendment that the original document Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 had seen. While this piece of legislation was originally well intended, setting a precedent for schools and teachers to uphold in education, it inadvertently worked simply by undermining the tests themselves and creating a vacuum of “high stakes testing” and subsequently strong arming teachers into shaping curriculum simply into teaching to the test. At its core the bill was implementing standardized tests for children in grades 3-8 annually and then readministering these tests again throughout high school to check proficiency levels in math and english of the students.

This piece of policy dramatically affected how state and local governments were allocating their funds towards education, how the teachers were teaching and what subjects they were heavily stressing for their students. Most importantly the flaws in this amendment to the almost 50 year old original document created an air of desperation and hopelessness among students, particularly those from low income or minority households.“The people who wrote the Common Core standards sold them as a way to improve achievement and reduce the gaps between rich and poor, and black and white. But the promises haven’t come true. Even in states with strong common standards and tests, racial achievement gaps persist. Last year, average math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress declined for the first time since 1990; reading scores were flat or decreased compared with a decade earlier.” (Ravitch, NYTimes.com)

This bill was passed in a sloppy rushed fashion, leaving major holes in what the Bush administration was hoping to achieve. They did not account for children from homes where english might not be the first language, students with minimal access to educational resources such as tutors or parents with higher degrees of education as well as a blatant disregard for students with learning disabilities. Creating a ‘cookie-cutter’ platform of education for such a diverse group of students pushes those who don’t fit the standard behind and further discourage their future success from being labeled as a “failure” at such young ages. Furthermore all the money being funneled into these high pressure standardized tests was taking away from the money that should have been funding arts programs, or reducing class size and better formatting programs aiming towards giving students falling behind the personalized tutoring and aid they needed to become proficient in math and english. Instead of implementing these more effective alternatives often times bored, older teachers who due to seniority cannot be fired in public schools, are being tasked with teaching this material provided by the state. They are given uninspiring curriculums and set dates with set information regarding how to ensure that their students know how to pass a test rather than seeing if they actually grasp the information. “Research, including a 2006 study of three states by the think tank Education Trust, shows that students in schools with a large percentage of minority and low-income students are more likely to be taught by teachers who are inexperienced and lack a major or minor in the subjects they teach. The teacher qualification provisions of NCLB are aimed at ensuring that schools where students tend to need the most help employ teachers who are qualified to provide it. States have struggled to meet this goal.” (greatschools.org) The bill set unrealistic expectations for both the student and the teachers to meet. This high degree of pressure only added to the issue of rushing material along, conforming to the test instead of the students and most unfortunately the level of “failure” among these schools. Students respond heavily to the nature of their environment. Being taught materials in a high pressure environment with little to no regard for the homes and backgrounds these students are being raised in creates an atmosphere which is incredibly unconducive towards the future success and education of the students.

This bill is crucially representative of several lapses in our recent policy actions regarding low income families as well as education. It marks a time where quantity is being regarded as higher than quality. Maybe it’s the american way to mass produce everything, to want everything to come out as fast as possible with having put as little time, effort or resources into them as possible. Similar flaws can be seen paralleled in other recent pieces of legislation such as Obamacare which hoped to expedite the amount of healthcare given out to American citizens in the form of a mandate. But ignored several of the repercussions to industry and individuals with its passing. We see this time and time again where the needs to fast results undermines the effectiveness of the work being done.

Romantic Rubble

There are many people who’s entire careers are centered around purely the notion of knowing when to quit and being able to get out of a situation with as little damage done to themselves as possible. The poker player knows when to fold his cards, the athlete knows when the race has been lost and the lawyer knows when the case is not going in the defendants favor. There becomes this looming question of, “when is it actually time to call it quits and let a situation go?” answering this question is never simple, often the answer is incredibly nuanced and multifaceted, unlike the professionals most of us have a harder time making a clean get away from a messy situation. I know for myself personally, i find it extremely painful and difficult to walk away from a person, even when they cause me heartache, even when the cons stack up higher than any of the pros. I look at the first, and only, love of my life and much like the colosseum i do not see simply the ruins he is now, i remember the earth shatteringly stunning building he use to be. I remember back when his marble pillars seemed like an unshakable source of stability for me, I remember when i believed the sun simple rose and set on his facade alone. But like all things, it is merely impossible to remain untouched by the bitter truths of the world, to remain a force unreckoned with as time passes on. The colosseum was built in 70 AD, and stood a striking 157 feet tall, its beautiful exterior and seemingly unbreakable force beckons you to fall in love with it. All good things, eventually fall victim to their truths, the colosseum stands now a rubbled remain of everything it use to be. Its painfully beautiful now to look back on damage and remember everything that use to be there before. I look at the person i naively use to think i would spend the rest of my life with and i almost feel bad now. Its sad knowing that like the breathtaking greek structures we marvel at in books or think fondly of in architecture lectures, he too, has broken down and withered away with time.

You can interpret the damage in one of two ways. You can see these buildings and these men you once swore were impenetrable forces against the world, you have to option to stay stunted in time, never moving past this wreckage, only wishing and praying for some miracle. Buildings, like people, can not be brought back up once they have crumbled down. Instead, simply we can clear the rubble, use it to ground ourselves and remind ourselves of what we use to have and how far we’ve come after. Everyone deserves a home that will not break, a world that will not crumble, and love that will not shatter before them. Looking at the mistakes of our past can serve as a strong template for the future, giving us instruction on what didn’t work before. This gives room for new ideas to fester and take place. It most importantly gives a perfect change to admire the past, but keep your eyes straight forward focusing on the future, and always remembering how far you’ve come.

Justice for the Justice System

Similarly to a snowflake or a fingerprint, every crime to ever be committed is a unique and complex scenario. Historically, many facets of the American political scheme are incredibly difficult to change or disrupt the flow of, a blatant example of this problem being the laws and legislature pertaining to our prison system. We have created a culture that feels directly into our overpopulated prisons, deeming almost anyone with a record as an offender who ought to be locked away for years and years. There is a certain degree of ignorance in a legal system who’s main concern is feeding into the prisons, thus feeding into the pockets of the wealthy elite who run the privatized prison system. Now nearly anyone who commits a crime, no matter how heinous or minor is incarcerated and becomes a part of a system stemming from the corrupt corporations running our prisons. The majority of the people in our prison system are people who from the beginning of their lives have experienced more hardship and struggle than anyone else, usually coming from underprivileged neighborhoods and lower socioeconomic status families.

The genuine root of this issue, besides the matter of greed and corruption, is that we have devised a sort of formulaic approach to managing the punishment or prison sentences of the crimes being committed. Crime “A” receives prison sentence “B” and you become inmate “C”. The entire premise of the system is cold and dehumanizing. The biggest downfall of our prison system is the lack of the voicing of the stories from both the perpetrators and from the victims of these crimes. In anthropology 101, the first thing you learn is that what separates humans from any other species is our ability to interact with each other. We, as people, have been given the gift of the ability to communicate. Our prison system has become completely devoid of the original ability to communicate, the single trait that has made humans such sophisticated creatures for generations.

Chapter 4 of Elizabeth Spelmans “Repair” offers complete insight to some radical means of solving the issues of having a privatized prison system. She offers an alternate solution where punishments are determined, not by the state of the crime, but by how severe it affected the victim. Implementing this problem clears up a multitude of issues. It is an important platform to giving  the victim a voice. Often times after the crime has been committed the person on the other end is still left with deeply damaging emotional wounds. Restorative justice gives the victim a voice, aiding in their closure regarding whatever has happened to them. This radicalized notion of justice also aids in the perpetrator of the crime better understanding the implications of their actions. Additionally “reintegrative shaming” offers more incentive for people not to commit crimes. Instead of being another anonymous face in the massive system of inmates, the criminals are forced to come “face to face” with the genuine result of their wrongdoings. This method of repairing people creates a much more conducive environment for actually seeing change and connecting with people on both sides of the crime. Speaking with and vocalizing the consequences of actions only works towards the common goal of better educating individuals and ultimately playing a crucial role in the challenge of repairing and bettering individuals in the community. While there are multiple ways a community can chose to use as their system of punishment, the triumphs of restorative justice are hard to deny and absolutely reflect the ways of the future.

Issues in a Gendered Society

What is needed is authoritative assurance that “educationally deprived” does not mean “uneducable” and that in fact the business of making repairs is far easier than most women believe. -pg 28

This quote remarkably and eloquently unveils a certain truth which many people have become disturbingly complacent with. The truth underneath this veil being that we live in a society which has purposefully crafted socially constructed, gendered boxes. These are hypothetical boxes being used to compulsively categorize each facet of our day to day life.  We wish to put everything, from clothes to jobs to toys, into labeled boxes. Man vs. Woman. Ironically, remaining within the walls of these boxes, which were crafted as a society to make us feel safer and remove just a bit of the chaos of life has in fact only been limiting us. Society has conditioned us to feel safe and assured when we recognize the ability to categorize things.There is a crucial distinction between not being able to do something, and living in a society that has conditioned you to believe you are unable to do so.

Spelman is compelled, possibly by her gender or her innate interest in questioning status quo, to challenge the assertion of assigned roles. This could possibly be because of the “fixed” state of notions of gender labeling or simply the societal necessity to move forward from our culturally outdated ideologies. Her examples of men secretly darning socks during times of war illuminates the historical and present day flaws with the ideas of strict gender roles. Teaching people that they should feel embarrassed or ashamed to disrupt social values leads to a nation of people riddled with secrecy and undermined productivity. Having men feel more comfortable with going out and fighting a war than doing a menial task labeled as “feminine” is a remarkable issue. This creates a vacuum of questioning and anxiety surrounding our abilities to be productive members of society instead of going ahead and being able to fix what needs fixing. While these mental blocks are a product of generations of conditioning its important to recognize the parallels in fixing any problem.

Whether you’re a mechanic fixing a car or a politician fixing a society there are mechanisms and components which need attention and maintenance. Reshaping the way a body of people think can be as simple or as difficult as switching the engine of a Saab or rewiring a dashboard, it just depends how you go about tackling these challenges. All of these things just require a certain degree of finesse but most importantly they require a great degree of eduction. Just because no one has taught you to fix an engine does not mean that you are unable to master this skill. Many of the problems women face when challenged with gender roles or skilled labor are rooted in them believing they will not be able to accomplish them but in fact quite the opposite is true. There has to be more room for discussion, a larger platform for education regarding the way women are being taught and the way we as a society are handling these discussions on gender and gender labeling. For lack of a better word, lots of “fixing” is necessary. Spelman is only scratching the surface on the topic of breaking away from gender stereotypes and their harmful affects on society as a whole but a thoroughly important conversation to begin.