Talking Points VIII – Oakes

This article dealt with a number of issues that I found interestingly comparable to Delpit and her ideas of “codes of Power”. Class is an issue of educational competence, lower classes a usually taught to use recall methods of education while “rich” educational based schools give students a chance to voice opinions and to deduct ideas and formulas. What I found sickening by this is that because schools in lower class areas are setting their students up to fail. With an enforcement of True and False or simple matching of names with definitions there’s no need for a student to remember these questions and answers after the exam or test is over. However, students who get a chance to show that they have a grasp on the concept that they are learning about, whether it’s through essay format or presentation gives them a chance to teach what they have learned but also show that they have a common grasp on the issue. Students who learn in schools where these opportunities aren’t readily available to them get their answers either right or wrong, there’s no room for gray areas.


Students also have to deal with being tricked by their teachers with questions that are reworded or rearranged. Students then tend to spend more time looking for a formula to answering these questions, then actually focusing on the importance of understanding of the question being asked of them. When a student looks for a True or False when answering a question that either begins or ends with “Almost never…” or “Almost Always…” the student is trying to figure out if the answer is either one or if it’s just “Never” or “Always” or “Sometimes”. These questions do no justice to the full in-depth grasp of a question. Something like this is a time consuming issue, especially for students who might be diagnosed with learning disabilities, as a words are switched around in a “clever” way a student might lose touch with what they are actually trying to do, which is SUPPOSE to be, answer the question and show they UNDERSTAND IT.


These “tricks” made by teachers who are less than interested at times about the well being of their already socially and economically “doomed” students of a lower class cause these students to put themselves down before they could even get a chance to prove themselves. This has a lot to do with Delpit, without a chance for these students given the opportunity to succeed them will find themselves remaining at the class level they were born into, as quoted in this piece no wonder why “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer”.


Praise of a student is also a problem, I agree more with the aspect of avoiding this at all costs. When giving a “reward” to students who do well in class and then comparing them to the students who are doing poorly only fuels issues of a lack of self worth and motivation. Putting students on a pedestal is rewarding for good students, but negative for students who have a hard time achieving the level of their studious peers.


Recently I have dropped my math course because my professor decided to make an “example” of me. Showing medians of good grades to bad grades she mentioned one student in particular who should just drop the class now because they got a 37, she looked directly at me. Feeling embarrassed, angry, frustrated, and hurt I took my paper from her and left the class.


I see that college holds absolutely NO exception to the rule of educational mishaps and errors. At the age of 24 I was embarrassed in front of a classroom of my peers, I felt like I was in elementary school again, I now see why I have such a hard time succeeding at Rhode Island College.