"I Just Wanna Be Average" Mike Rose

It is always shocking but also comforting to read a testimony like Rose's experience in high-school and how life can change because of an event or a person. I'm not familiar with the American school system and reading this essay makes me think differently about what i thought of it and it also makes me understand it better. I realize that there not much difference between the system I know (French) and the American one. I like to be positive and i hope that the system is changing and by reading testimonies like this maybe we (teachers) will offer equal opportunities to study for all.
Rose mentioned that schools have criticized and made parents responsible for their children's failure because they do not get involved in their education (163). It is revolting when farther in the reading to find out that teachers in the Voc. Ed were just unqualified, troubled, passionless for education, lacked motivation, in other words were just low-grade teachers. Rose was lucky enough to get out of the pack. Finally one of his teacher realized that his scores were not reflecting his abilities but what happen to the others.... They stayed in this "cul de sac" situation, kind of no hope situation. Society and school system allow to perpetrate inequality among social levels and this leave me a little bit puzzled....It makes think of what Freire was saying about oppression and education and i wasn't going with his theory but reading Rose's testimony i can see oppression in education. So what is really education? Freedom for some and oppression for others....depending on which side we are in society, a matter of location and finance.....

Inventing the University

I liked Bartholomae's paper on "Inventing the University". He brought up interesting examples of student essays and how they have to be specific or "specialized" in their writing to satisfy academic standards (p. 511). I agree that students have to mimic professors and write the same language as their discipline to be "members of the academy". "I think that all writers, in order to write, must imagine for themselves the privileged of being "insider"--that is, of being both inside an established and powerful discourse, and of being granted a special right to speak" (p. 516). This quotation made me think. I can relate to these students who are trying to please their professors. I had myself so many times wrote just for my teachers. Through my years at the university, I believe that most of my papers were empty, just words put together to satisfy the number of pages required to pass the exam. I recognize that this approach is wrong and i've never thought much of it before, but Bartholomae almost convince me that to be successful and truthful to my writing I must write as a writer who knows her topic as much or more as my audience, I have to extend myself through my writing to reach my readers.

"A Kind Word for Bullshit" was easier to read comparing to "On bullshit". I would say pleasant, coherent and lively due to many examples used in the text. Eubanks and Schaeffer make an appropriate and concise definition of Bullshit: "Bullshit is disconnected from the truth in a way that lying never is (p. 375). Both agree that they perpetuate academic bullshit and they think that some are unavoidable and beneficial (p. 372). I cannot come to the conclusion, how can it be beneficial?