Course Reflection

Week 6: Course Reflection

I can’t believe the final week is here!  I have to admit I am slightly relieved and feel as though I can finally relax and start enjoying the summer.  I enjoyed all of the reading material this semester.  I found the first three articles we read: “The “Banking” Concept of Education”, “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, and “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower”, very interesting.  It was interesting to read about the different perceptions about education.  Although I knew that education differs between public and private schools, I did not realize how different education was among public schools in different districts.  The documentary film, The House I Live In, was a little depressing but very insightful.  It made me question things I never thought about before in regards to drug policies in America.  I always felt that people should do time for their crimes but I never really thought about how the judicial system creates more crime than preventing it.  I think it is insane that the U.S. government has spent over $1 trillion dollars on the War on Drugs in America over the last forty years, yet we are no better off than when we first started.  The reading I enjoyed the most was the book The Glass Castle.  I found it extremely fascinating and couldn’t put the book down.  I love reading true stories and I think Jeannette Walls did a great job telling her story of her dysfunctional childhood.  I also thought it was very inspiring in that Walls showed everyone that you can be successful no matter how you were raised or where you came from.   I found the papers we had to write for each reading assignment more challenging than I thought they would be.  It was helpful to be able to have our draft papers peer-reviewed and critiqued by others and then given a chance to revise our papers after receiving feedback.  In addition to the readings and papers this semester we had to write a blog every week.  At first it was a little intimidating to me because I had never done anything like that before.  It actually wasn’t too bad and I actually found it refreshing to write our personal views on the material or specific topics from the week’s assignments in a more informal format.  Overall the course provided a unique way of learning and thinking, however the course was very fast paced and it was easy to become overwhelmed with the workload.  It was nice to have a small size class for a change because I feel like I had more interaction with my classmates and my Professor.   

Week 5, The House I Live In

This week we watched the film The House I Live In.  It is about the failure of the war on drugs in America.  The filmmaker, Jarecki, points out that in the last 40 years America has spent $1 trillion dollars of government spending on the war on drugs and holds the most prisoners in the world.  Despite all the time, money, and efforts, drugs in America are very prevalent and relatively cheap to get.  The film explains that the war on drugs is not working and we need to fix drug policies in America.  Jarecki makes an argument that drug use should be considered a public heath issue and not a crime issue for law enforcement to handle.  I’m not sure I entirely agree with Jarecki.  I do think that drug use is a personal and public health issue and should be addressed as such as long as there is no violence or other crime associated with it.  I think that more rehabilitation programs should be set in place and funded by the government in order to help people overcome their drug issues.  The film presents another argument that the drug issue is a political and financial issue.  Presidents in the past have used the war on drugs as part of their campaign to get elected or reelected into office.  In addition, many companies today such as taser companies and health care companies have become dependent on prisons being their biggest customers.  Prisons also employ a large number of people.  If the drug laws would change they would cause a lower number of prisoners and prisons in the country and many towns along with the residents would face a financial crisis.  However, you could fix this problem by opening more rehabilitation programs around the country.  These rehabilitation programs could employ many people not needed by the prisons.  The programs would still need health care products and other services that could replace the business done with the prisons.  I think the extra programs are the best way to improve the progress of the war on drugs in America and they would help prevent individuals from going back to their old ways.

Week 4, The meaning of the glass castle

This week we wrote our second paper on the meaning of the title of the book we previously read called The Glass Castle.  The title of the book, The Glass Castle, refers to the big house that Jeannette Walls’s father Rex promised to build one day for their family.  In my paper, I wrote about how the title symbolizes the father Rex’s hope and desire for a prosperous life in which he can provide for his family.  I think it represents the family’s faith and hope in their father’s ability to build the castle, and their dream of a better life, where they all lived and together as a family.  No matter how arduous their lives got, Rex and Jeannette could always hold onto the idea that someday they’d all be living in the glass castle.  I also thought that the glass castle is the driving force behind the Walls family’s optimism during their difficult times of hunger and poverty.   What I found ironic was that glass is fragile and so was the stability of the Walls family structure.  Eventually Jeannette realized that her father was never going to build the glass castle for their family, and she decided she had to make a better life for herself.  Jeannette held onto the dream of the glass castle throughout her life and although she knew that the physical structure would never be built, she continued to hold on to the hope and dream of building a better, more stable life for herself.  

The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle 

I thought this book was amazing!  At first I was slightly skeptical and thought that it would be very depressing.  But Jeannette Walls is a fantastic writer and I thought she did a fantastic job telling her story of her childhood.  The Glass Castle had many different themes in the story such as poverty, neglect, abuse, depression, alcoholism, and self-sufficiency.  I think I was most surprised about the level of poverty the Walls family faced, and the self-sufficiency expected by the Walls parents of their children. 

The Walls family frequently went without adequate amounts of food, money, and shelter.  Rex, the father, was always losing or quitting jobs and often spent their money on alcohol and irresponsible things.  Rose Mary, the mother, sometimes worked as a teacher in grade schools but cared more about freedom and her artwork to maintain any job for long.  The family was in such poverty throughout most of their lives.  In her story, Jeannette divulges that she and her siblings had next to nothing and slept on cardboard boxes in their broken down homes.  She also speaks about how she goes days without eating and must resort to digging food out of the garbage in order to eat.  For example, Jeannette discusses how she hid in the bathroom at school waiting for girls to throw out their lunches so she could later scavenge.  Her example sheds light on the level of poverty her family was facing and how desperate she was to eat when food at home was scarce.     

I was also amazed by how Rex and Rose Mary insisted that their children learn to be self-sufficient and at such a young age.  They are determined to teach all of their children the value of taking care of themselves.  Many times Rex and Rose Mary put their children in unsafe situations in hopes to instill level of toughness and self-sufficiency in their children.  Although I find this to be dangerous at times, I think it was fortunate that the children learned to be so self-sufficient.  Unfortunately Rex was an alcoholic, Rose Mary was not interested in raising four children and both parents were a little narcissistic and neglectful.  The Walls children had to quickly learn how to take care of themselves and I think this is the main reason the children were able to survive their unfortunately awful childhood.  Their self-sufficiency and incredible intelligence is what gave them the strength and ability to move, and transform their lifestyle into something great. 

Writing Experience

First Writing Experience

I found the three articles: “The “Banking” Concept of Education”, “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, and “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower”, very interesting.  The articles were each about different methods of education, but each author had unique perspectives on the education system.  I thought that the writing process for the first paper of this class went well.  I thought it was very beneficial to receive feedback from my peers on the first draft.  Everyone’s feedback was helpful in editing the final paper.  I also found it helpful to receive feedback and criticism from our professor.  Everyone has their own perception and unique insights so I think it’s a great idea to be able to hear what others have to say about the same subject.  I did have a hard time fitting in all of the suggestions into my paper without going into a ton of different tangents.   Next time maybe I’ll focus on changing/adding just two or three main suggestions to my paper.  For all of my previous classes, I was required to write more scientifically and just stick to the facts.  I have never had to write an opinionated paper in past classes.  In fact, I was never allowed to voice my thoughts about the topics I was writing about before.   So needless to say, I found that slightly challenging while writing this paper.  For the next paper I will also try to focus a little more on my thought process or my views on specific topics.