My Elementary School

(Sorry this is late, I’m sick! Finally forced enough energy out of myself to sit up and type this! Sorry if it doesn't make any sense at all... :/)

                I grew up in a small college town, which for the most part is an extremely affluent and sophisticated society. Although Columbia, Missouri has several wealthy neighborhoods, the majority of its population seems to be upper middle class. The elementary school that I went to was supposedly at the top of its game as far as public schools in the area went. The only school we would hear about that the kids were “so much smarter” at was Columbia Independent School.

                Mill Creek Elementary School was by far my favorite school of all that I had attended. In general, the school would always promote an idea that every individual matters and we must strive to achieve our full potential.  Starting from kindergarten, we were always working on little projects hands on projects either to learn the basics or to express something that we learned from a story we recently read in class. We would always be encouraged to make the projects our own and would always get the chance to share our creation with the class or another “partner” once we were done. We were often encouraged to be immersed within what we were learning. We had a full day in fifth grade where we were not allowed to use anything that the pioneers didn’t have on their trip across the west in honor of learning about the Organ Trail.

                In Mill Creek, we were always encouraged to work as a big group, as a community, but also to let our individuality show and share it. It was always a creative environment and would seek to engage us in learning as much as possible. I remember that our kindergarten class raised a few caterpillars and released them once they turned into butterflies. This was the general mentalitly of the school, to keep the children interested and keep their world creative. Our writing assignments (up until about third grade) were always left open ended and allowed us to write about pretty much anything we wanted in whatever way we wanted.

 Although the classes were very open and encouraging, we were rarely pushed as far as learning went. We never delved into anything as deeply as the “Executive Elite School” according to Anyon, but we were always encouraged individually as students if we took the initiative to do something a little bit harder or more challenging than what was assigned to the class. In this way, I was quite often picking harder books to read, more complex explanations for things during social studies, science, and reading. I felt that the environment was always flexible as Anyon describes and we were always kept engaged as much as possible. We would go walk around the school grounds collecting things for a science class or would bring things from home to share with others. There was always flexibility between the teachers and we never felt completely rushed. This would occasionally allow for times when the classes would “be too noisy”. The teachers would then resort to the more strict and almost judgmental ways seen in the Middle Class Schools in Anyon’s research. At this point, the classrooms would generally lose their sense of learning and creativeness which Mill Creek was based upon.

http://service.columbia.k12.mo.us/millcreek/  also, thought it was interesting that I still almost have this memorized… http://www.columbia.k12.mo.us/mce/pledgepage.htm

Connection between Freire and Krishnamurti

Upon reading from the writings of Freire and Krishnamurti, it is quite obvious that these philosophers believe many of the same things. They seem to agree on the fact that they do not like the world now, or how we are being raised to be in this world and also on the fact that our society musty radically change in order to fix the great problems it is suffering.

One of the main points that both authors talk about, is the changing of education. They both seem to indicate that “learning” begins at a young age in schools from teachers and parents. This supposed learning eventually shapes us into the person that we will be in society. We learn how to act, respond, and how the world works, just by what our teachers, parents, and peers have told us is wrong, right, bad, or good. In the words of Freire, “The educated individual is the adapted person, because she or he is better “fit” for the world.” We are taught to not question how the world works, even though it is quite imperfect, but rather exactly how to fit into it and not mess with the system at all. Both seem to agree that the objective of our educational systems now is to create a world where the students can easily fit in without questioning the system at all.

Both authors allude to the idea of people’s lives being taken away from them by this process. Krishnamurti describes it as conforming to the general path of going to school, getting a job, getting married, having kids, etc. while Freire explains it as taking away people’s lives and turning them into objects. Both get the point across that by blindly following this method of education, being told what to do and how to think, we are “approaching line mechanically.” Both texts explain that because people lack to think for themselves, they conform to materialistic things and ideas, such as power in order to feel as though they are truly fulfilling their lives.

In the end, both authors are strongly trying to push change. They believe that our education, school systems, parents, and society in general are “indoctrinating [people] to adapt to the world of oppression.” They believe that the only way to accomplish such a change in education and overall living, is by flat out rejecting the current method of education. Krishnamurti spoke of how it was impossible for a person to change who they are as a person without becoming aware of themselves and how they were, what they were. Freire explains it in a way that consciousness is being conscious of consciousness. Either way, these two authors believe in the idea that the only way to change education, is for the individuals to change, and the only way for individuals to change, is for the individual to become conscious of themselves, who they are, and why they are. By people becoming aware of this, each person will be challenged and “their response to the challenge evokes new challenges, followed by new understanding.” This is also explained by Krishnamurti in the way of people being pushed forward to learn without “ambition.” The belief of both people is that society must radically change, without being forced to, but by choosing to as individuals and as a whole.

Questions About Writing

How do you think about writing? What is it to you?


I have always though that writing was a great art form. I have never particularly felt attached to it, or like I was good at it in any way, but I admire people who are quite good at it. I guess I am not as enthralled with writing as I am reading. Reading has always been something I love to do. It opens up your mind to different ideas and worlds which you otherwise may never have thought of. My favorite author of all time is Stephen King. Although I am sure that there are many more writers out there who have crafted much better pieces of work, King has always been able to reach me. He understands the basic fears and vulnerabilities of humans and plays on those weaknesses as much as he can. I don’t know if anyone (besides a musician or composer) who has ever quite moved me and made me feel so much through their work as with King’s The Green Mile. This book has permanently changed the way I think and feel about some things. For example, I can no longer hear the word “brine” without freaking out and having a gruesome image of an electrocution. I can’t get the ending of the book out of my head and every time I think about it, I feel the same intense sting as the same time I finished the book. To me, writing is the connection between the writer and the reader to express feelings. There are a million ways to reach another human being, and if used well, writing can be one of the most effective ways.

What has your experience with writing been like?

I have always had pretty mixed feelings about writing. Pretty much, it dates back all the way to first grade and stupid “creative spelling” or whatever the hell it was called. We were encouraged to spell words how we thought they were supposed to be spelled… but once spelling tests came around, this creative approach made me feel like I was doing everything completely wrong because my spelling was so terrible. So that was the first negative. As I began to get a little older, I was not nearly as easily amused or nearly as willing to do just anything, and writing the 20th story about my family, house, and pets just was no longer interesting. This began my intense dislike for writing in a school sense. Responding to prompts which half the time you couldn’t give two shits about strongly turned me off from writing and the fact that it was always so subjective when it came to grading. It was not until recently that I ever considered that writing could be done without it being required. Within the past couple of years, I have started to use writing as a way to vent my feelings when they are just WAY too difficult to keep to myself, and I don’t want to share them with anyone else. SO, I now keep a journal of sorts that I have loads of yelling, scribbles, and a complete spilling out of my feelings of that exact moment.



What people, events, or experiences have shaped these ideas of writing?

Well, when I was in 3rd grade I believe, I had one of my first prompt writing “tests”. I really had absolutely no clue what to expect, or how these things worked at all. So, I think I can easily say that my best and least influenced writing by anyone else was this one. It came straight from the heart, a story about my dear dog Austrea and her last few hours before we had to put her to sleep. I genuinely loved her, grew up with her, and I think this came through in the writing. So, once I got the paper back and had a grade of 4 (four being the highest), I began to wonder “oh, how do I make sure to get a good grade on writing assignments in the future?” This was the beginning of my crappy and meaningless writing. Since that point, I’ve noticed that some of my most B.S. papers have gotten the best grades and that a lot of it has to do with who is grading it. I’ve been told that I’m very far ahead with my writing skills compared to my other classmates and also told that I should come in before and after school to get extra help on that writing assignment. If it weren’t for music and my belief that if done right, you can express yourself and make others feel the same feelings that you feel, I would have totally said “screw you” to writing years ago. Because of a few books I have read and many poetic song lyrics, I have not completely given up on writing and just assume that it’s all writing to do with school that sucks rather than writing in general!