Final Reflection

                I will be using the Text for the Final Reflection The role Tutoring has in educational development is crucial to the academic success of the student. Tutoring can alleviate any writer’s blocks the student is experiencing, thus practicing with the student literacy skills that were attained in class lectures. My efficiency as a tutor plays an important role in my teaching philosophy; the strategies used to help a tutee start an essay will also serve to help my future students when struggling with an assignment. Books like Tutoring Writing has helped me further my understanding on how to develop a thesis or construct a paper without taking ownership of the paper, and academic journals like Rigid Rules by Mike Rose has modified my writing process by taking a heuristic or adaptable approach to writing assignments. It is my duty as a future teacher to use the skills I have acquired and perfect them to become a contributing member of society. With these newly acquired skills I plan to impart literacy skills among working class students that will help them break free from becoming the oppressed or the oppressor. In the article Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, the author explains But almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or "sub-oppressors." The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. (Freire 45) Freire demonstrates how society has radically dehumanized, striped of our humanity to the point that we also have become oppressors. We live in a profoundly sick society in which we do not acknowledge that many of us are in the working class and not middle class, we the people have developed a culture in which we conform to government’s rules and do not ask questions creating a world in which inequality has been the highest since the 1970’s. Like Freire, author Michael Argyle of Culture and Social Class has similar beliefs. Argyle states, “Do people know what class they are in? Not really, at least not in America. Most working class Americans believe they are middle class, and American political discourse emphasizes the idea that “regular people” are middle class” (Argyle 3). Social class is classified by three components, education level, occupation and income, due to politicians giving misinformation on how people are classified, many come to believe they are part of the middle class which causes any representation for the working class in politics. Due to our misguided perception, we have affected others as well, especially the coming generations in this country. we have unfortunately supported illiteracy among our children by conforming to the still segregated schools in our community. Nothing has changed much since the civil rights movement, and in the article Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol, the author informs readers on how we can still see segregated schools through out the country like St. Louis in Missouri where there is an extreme lack of funding in schools which only generates drop out, teen pregnancy and illiterate children which ultimately become working class members of society. In Kozol’s search for different perspectives of the education issues he asks students from a upper middle class school their opinion on integration and he states, “ A student named Jennifer, whose manner of speech is somewhat less refined than others, tells me her parents came here from New York. ‘ … I don’t think it’s our responsibility to pay our taxes to provide for them.’” (Kozol 86). She is a clear example of the oppressed becoming the oppressor she does not wish to help others because she believes it is in them to help themselves not the government. She believes the government has no responsibility in your education or in your social economic status. I believe as a future teacher I can change the generations to come, by installing critical thinking I will make them question conformity in our country