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Mike Rose
Add a comment to this post, in which you include, attribute, explain, and cite a passage from “I Just Wanna Be Average” that resonates with you. Your goal in your comment is to explain something new-to-you that have learned about literacy by looking at this passage through the lenses of one or more of Juliane Koepcke’s survival strategies.
Start by describing (not quoting) some part of Rose’s experience that you find interesting, strange, or revealing. Help a reader understand Rose’s experience and what you find interesting about it. Choose a 3-4 sentence chunk of Rose’s text where he seems to be trying to interpret his experiences to quote directly, and direct your reader’s attention to the significant features of the quote and explain to your readers what you find interesting, strange, or revealing about his interpretation of his experiences.
Next, make a text-to-self or text-to-text connection by showing how Mike Rose’s literacy experiences can help you make sense of your own, or Sherman Alexei’s, literacy experiences. You’ll likely want to fold in some material from your prewriting about your own literacy experiences, and/or a paraphrased passage from “Superman and Me.” Also try to explain why should someone else be interested in your literacy experiences.
Close your post with a concrete, clear statement of what you have learned about literacy as a result of writing this post.
Once you’ve finished composing your own post, read and comment on at least two of your colleagues’ posts, explaining what you’ve learned about literacy from reading their posts and thinking about their literacy experiences.
There were many parts of Rose’s passage where I found them to be interesting, strange, and revealing. In a section of the passage, Rose describes no matter how bad the school, you’ll encounter notions that don’t fit with your assumptions or beliefs. What caught my attention is how Rose informs his readers on the fact that anywhere you go, whether it’s a new school or job, there will always be someone or something that goes against your beliefs or assumptions. Rose stated, “You’ll see a handful of students far excel you in courses that sound exotic and that are only in the curriculum of the elite: French, physics, trigonometry. And all this is happening while you’re trying to shape an identity; your body is changing, and your emotions are running wild.”(pp 28) What I found interesting about the quote was how Rose demonstrated the actuality of experiences that occur in the lives of students.
Mike Rose’s literacy experiences can help me make sense of my own literacy experiences in many ways. The way Rose provides examples of his past experiences helps me relate to my school experiences and teaches me to not do the same mistakes he did.
What I find revealing about Mike Rose’s story is the setting he grew up in. He talks about waiting for the bus with the drunks who pissed themselves and the hookers waiting for the last few customers(13). He grew up around “nobodies” he is instantly categorized as someone similar to them or will be just like them in the future. This is revealing in the sense that there is great reasoning for someone like this to want to be average, being average in a place like this is much different than being average in a friendly suburban area. It is difficult to not revert to the ways of those around you. Luckily Rose had parents who gave him the tools to succeed. Even though they could not read or write and had very few books they got Mike what he needed. Mike was attentive and focused during class.
One Christmas Rose received a chemistry set and he experimented with it nonstop. Once hearing that one of his mother’s coworkers kids had an incident that involved “fooling around with explosives (20).” he was not frightened by it however he was disappointed his experimenting was not as exciting. This shows Mike’s persistence when it comes to learning new things. He struggled in school as a mediocre student but kept going to put in work. Both his father and grandfather were crippled and sent to rehabilitation and his father passed away shortly. After a traumatic incident like that it is hard for a student to focus on school or even care about school. However Rose talks about Mr. Macfarlane and how he showed up in his life at the perfect time. His teaching style was better than any other teacher Mike thought, He found himself being an active participant and he was being attentive again(32). Again, mike Perseveres through difficult times and is learning becoming one step closer to being average.
Through Mike Rose’s words I see clearly that he had to fight to be average in his situation. Anybody can give up in his situation but to fight through emotional pain in order to reach the minimal goal of being average speaks magnitudes in terms of character
Hi Matt,
This is a thoughtful post with a lot of insight into Rose’s life. What did it take for Rose to move beyond wanting to be average? What kinds of changes in his life did he have to make?
When being placed in a situation that people expect you to fail in, there will be no motivation just sadness and anger. When being placed in a school where all kids are looked at as slow or the same, everyone starts to blend in with one another.“Reject the confusion and frustration by openly defining yourself as the Common Joe.” “Rely On your own good sense.” (29.) Even if trying to succeed does not work in the beginning Creating them to be so called average. You can either agree that you’re average or prove them wrong.
In high school, I wasn’t the person to get on the honor roll or even to answer questions in class. I saw myself as the average student, I quite often was confused for an entire class and when I was at home doing the work, I felt defeated. This made me put in the extra time and to ask questions after class was done. Somedays I shut down at home and at school. I thought I was a failure. Almost how Rose basically says just admit you’re average.
Reading Rose’s narrative I can now see that even people who turn out to be authors had trouble while they were in school while finding who they were. Eventually able to succeed and see that not just how they were in school defined them. I think that is a great mindset to be in for myself and others.
A part of Rose’s experience with writing that I found was interesting was when he talks about how to essentially bullshit your way into looking dumb as a defense from doing any hard work in school. Rose talks about having to “reject any intellectual stimuli or diffuse them with sarcasm” (pg 29) The fact that he was actually trying to stop himself from being smart in that class just so he didn’t have to do any work or the subjects that they “learned” wouldn’t be as hard is completely insane to. Why would you go so far to not do any work or not have to learn anything cause it’s easier at the time when it’s just gonna turn around and bite you in the ass when you’re finally faced with something that’s difficult.
Seeing Mike Rose’s literacy experience changed my perspective on choosing things the easy way and just floating on by in a class. Now fro seeing that experience I’m making sure to not be lazy and to not just do the bare minimum when it comes to writing or any work of that matter. I learned from his writing and through self experience in the past with this kind of stuff, not necessarily to the extent that he went to to not have to do as much work or learn something hard but I can recall in my past where I could’ve done better on a subject or I just did the bare minimum to pass and that was it. But now after reading his writing and looking back on my own experiences I’ll make sure to always push and better myself no matter how difficult
There were many parts of Rose’s passage where I found them to be interesting, strange, and revealing. In one of the parts Rose describes no matter how bad the school, you’ll encounter notions that don’t fit with your assumptions or beliefs. What I found interesting was that Rose was enlightens his readers on the fact that not everywhere you go around the world whether its a new school or job, there will always be someone or something that goes against your beliefs or assumptions. Rose stated, “You’ll see a handful of students far excel you in courses that sound exotic and that are only in the curriculum of the elite: French, physics, trigonometry. And all this is happening while you’re trying to shape an identity; your body is changing, and your emotions are running wild.”(pp 28) What’s significant about the quote is that Rose demonstrates the reality of actual experiences that occur in the lives of students. He’s basically trying to get his readers to understand that you’ll run into many obstacles during your school career, but how you manage and overcome them determines your level of success.
In junior year I had trouble with classes due to some family matters. But I get how Rose felt during the move from convocational classes to college prep classes. I found chemistry and English very hard to keep up with. I really didn’t feel like I could do it but luckily I had one of the best teachers that stayed after school countless of times past 9 pm. Due to all the time we spent together we got very close and became more like friends instead of teacher and student. But my teacher reminds me about Rose’s relationship with the priest, “… who taught both chemistry and second-year algebra” (Rose 30). Personally my teacher helped me with literally everything from chemistry to history and English. If I am totally honest I probably would not have passed my junior year. What I’ve learned from that experience is that you should always ask for help because most of the time they are willing to help you as long as you’re trying.
In junior year I had trouble with classes due to some family matters. But I get how Rose felt during the move from convocational classes to college prep classes. I found chemistry and English very hard to keep up with. I really didn’t feel like I could do it but luckily I had one of the best teachers that stayed after school countless of times past 9 pm. Luckily I had my teacher to sit down next to me and force me to do my homework. I understand that going up in the grades is challenging and I can’t imagine how going up from convocational to college prep is but I definitely get that it comes with a lot of work. I also know what it feels like not wanting to do that work. As a result of not wanting to do the work I never did my homework and got farther and farther behind. Thankfully my teacher really cared about how his students were doing and was willing to help me however he could.
But my teacher reminds me about Rose’s relationship with the priest, “… who taught both chemistry and second-year algebra” (Rose 30). Personally my teacher helped me with literally everything from chemistry to history and English. If I am totally honest I probably would not have passed my junior year if I hadn’t asked for help. Most students hate to ask for help especially when they really need it. They think that it’s a sign of weakness or that they are stupid because they need help. That is not the case. It shows that you’re strong and can ask for help when you need it.
What I’ve learned from that experience is that you should always ask for help because most of the time people are willing to help you as long as you’re trying to do better.
Hi Jarrett, solid self-to-text connection. You use a piece of Rose to make sense of parts of your experience. I’d like to see what you could do with other pieces of the Rose text.
A chunk from Roses writing that I found interesting was when he talks about the fight between a kid who was being bullied but then lost it and attacked his bully. This caused a big fight and the teacher had no control. I can can make a connection to this because I have seen this in my high school before . After this incident we never got anything done in class because no-one had respect for the teacher and did what they felt like .
What meaning does Rose make of this incident? Notice his use of this phrase to try to build meaning for the incident: “They had pushed and pushed and bullied their way into a freedom that both scared and embarrassed them (26). That sentence seems like it’s meant to say something important. What do you think it means? Does his explanation fit your version of the experience? If not, what was different about the way your guys responded to the similar situation, and what explains the difference?
Dwayne Roberts JR
I find it interesting that Rose is a very humble and polite guy. When his sophomore english teacher said”Italian ! Ho.Rose, do you know the sound a bag of shit makes when it hits the wall?”PG25 If this was me I would’ve flipped out on my teacher But Rose does not and handles it better. Rose handled this better than I would’ve due to his upbringing and prior learning in catholic school where you can’t talk back to teachers because they are allowed and will hit you or something like that. He also reacted better than I would due to the times we both live in that wouldn’t be as acceptable to freak out back then as it would be now.
When Roses parents sent him to catholic school instead of public i can relate to that a lot. His parents were putting a lot on the line to better their child’s life. They sent him to a better school and made their lives more hard and stressful by making this decision. Not every child gets this opportunity I was forcient enough for my parents to hire a tutor for the SATs and we as a family had to make sacrifices for this just like Roses family. And as I sit here today I believe that my parents would both agree that these sacrifices were will worth it. Not everyone is blessed enough to have parents or guardians and to have these people do things for you like send you to catholic school or to pay for tutoring is the best thing. My father never had this for him and this is why he is the man he is today and this is why i am here and who i am today. Without these resources i wouldn’t be here today.
In conclusion i have learned over the years is to be grateful. Literacy has shown me that everyone has it easy and if people stick their neck out for you you need to be grateful because it could be taken away in just one second. If Roses parents never sent him to catholic school he might of never became a writer and never would of published this. Being grateful is the key to learning about anything
When Mike Rose says “I certainly was not MacFarland’s best student; most of the other guys in College Prep, even my fellow slackers, had better backgrounds than I did. But I worked very hard, for MacFarland had hooked me. He tapped my old interest in reading and creating stories. He gave me a way to feel special by using my mind” (Rose 34). I found it interesting that beforehand he had no motivation to do well in school but, after his father passed away he got so determined to have MacFarland’s approval. Possibly because he felt guilty for not wanting to make his own father proud that now he feels as though he needs to with MacFarland. When I feel comfortable to a teacher I feel like I owe it to them to try my best and work hard even if I am not the “best” student just because I hey deserve it.
That’s an interesting take on Rose’s motivation, Emily. I wonder if the two men – the working class father and the college prep teacher – pushed him in different ways. What kinds of futures did the two men envision for him? What kind of guide could each man be for Rose as he worked towards the future?
There wasn’t much in Rose’s experience that I found either interesting, strange or revealing, it was more like shocking. The most shocking thing for me was him discussing his mother’s job situation. He explains, “My mother took a job at a cafe in downtown Los Angeles, a split shift 9:00 to 12:00 and 5:00 to 9:00, but her tips were totaling sixty cents a day, so she quit for a night shift at Coffee Dan’s. This got her to the bus stop at one in the morning, waiting on the same street where drunks were urinating and hookers were catching the last of the bar crowd. . .In a couple years, Coffee Dan’s would award her a day job at the counter.” (B12-T13). Rose’s experience above is more of his mother’s experience than his own, but he explains how tough it was to be in the working class and the bad within the good. By that I mean the good is that his mother has a job, she’s able to provide something to her family, the bad meaning the hours she had given and the situations she could have been placed into or gone through. But Rose shows that his mother had continuously worked to provide some sort of income for their family and that eventually it paid off when she had gotten a day job at the counter. It was found shocking because no matter how hard things had become, his mother still worked to get what she can to provide what she can, which in the end paid off when she had been promoted. This exact moment connect back to Alexie’s experiences, to making do with what you have. Rather than Rose’s mother wishing that she had a better job or better hours, she made do with the hours she had and where she was working. After writing this post, I have learned that literacy doesn’t come easy, it takes time and perseverance.
Hi Sarah, I’m interested in your choice of focus on Rose’s mother. How do you think Rose’s mothers’ experiences at work filtered into Rose’s own attitudes towards school when he was in the vocational track? In the college prep track?
What I find interesting is when he finessed a cheat code for his class he said that his spring semester was one world and the fall one was another. They realized how he could of done that good and got suspicious. What Im getting at is Rose just wanted to be successful. I think this passage when he said , “I lived in one world during spring semester, and when I came back to school in the fall, I was living in another”. I think he wanted to emphasize maybe to not do what he did and figure out something else, because he didn’t really know the subject.
Hi Alex, how hard do you think it was for Rose to make the transition to the college prep classes? What aspects of his behavior and maybe identity had to change in order to survive in the college prep classroom?
A revealing passage that I found Rose mentioned started with, “Jack MacFarland couldn’t have come into my life at a better time. My father was dead, and i logged up too many years of scholastic indifference. Mr. MacFarland had a master’s degree from Columbia and decided, at twenty six, to find a little school and teach his heart out. ( 33) ” Later in the paragraph according to Mike Rose he states, “His teeth were stained, he tucked his sorry tie in between the third and fourth buttons of his shirt, and his pants were chronically wrinkled. At first, we couldn’t believe this guy, thought he slept in his car. But within no time, he had us so startled with work that we didn’t worry much about where he slept at all.” I found this revealing because he got motivated by a teacher he at first misinterpreted by how he looked and his presence in class. But ended up being his most influential teacher of his life and turned him into a excelled writer.
A comment in , “I Just wanna Be Average” I found that resonates with me is, “I just wanna be average,” (28) That woke me up. Average?! Who wants to be average? When I saw this I can picture in my head my Dad saying don’t be average. The summer heading into my senior year I can clearly remember I worked a camp for my high school coach. For younger kids and kids up to 8th grade. When my coach ( Coach Pires) introduced the staff I can clearly remember what he said about me. “Alex is going to need to step up this year and help us win, right now I don’t know if he can”. After he said that, jeez, my mind switched in a heartbeat. I wanted to be the best, I wanted to play harder and smarter, I wanted a change for myself. I mean in a sense, he was right, I hadn’t proved anything to him yet. When he said, “That woke me up” it for damn sure woke me up too. I think he put this in there because it can most likely relate to any student athlete and any person. Whatever you desire to do in life, he’s trying to point out that you shouldn’t settle for being average.
What I have learned about literacy because of my post is, any teacher of any subject can change your life at any given time. No matter their appearance or anything. My text to self connection made me realize any person in the world can anything at any given time to you, that can change your life forever. Different phrases you maybe haven’t heard before, something clicks and it can change your mindset on what you want to achieve and do in your life.
Wow! I don’t think I would call out a student/athlete like your coach did. What was it about the situation that enabled you to take his words as a challenge to get better rather than a reason to quit? Would you react the same way if your English teacher had said the same kind of thing? Is there a similar situation in Rose that you might relate your experience to?
A passage from Roses writing that I found interesting was when he talks about the fight that went on between a kid who was being bullied but then snapped and attacked his bully causing a big fight and the teacher had no control of the classroom after that, I can relate to his experience because this has actually happened before in one of the classrooms that I was in when I was in middle school. It’s crazy how a teacher can lose control of a classroom for the rest of a school year and how drastically it can affect a child’s learning. They go from being controlled and actually learning something to going wild and choosing to just do the bare minimum and not learn anything at all.
I messed up on my comment I just wrote about “I Just Wanna Be Average” I forgot about Roses writing. Something new that I learned from Roses writing about Koepcke’s survival is how she used her emotions like fear to fuel her survival, and how in writing I could possibly use my fear of something I may be writing about or the amount of work I have to do in a writing subject to fuel me to do better in it.
Try to learn something about becoming literate by looking at Rose’s experience through the lens of Koepcke’s survival strategies. Think about the connection between literacy and survival in literal and metaphorical ways.
I would never want to be considered “average”. Mike Rose says to be average is to “protect themselves from such suffocating madness by taking on with a vengeance… Reject the confusion and frustration by openly defining yourself as the Common Joe” (Rose, 29). To be like everyone else is so boring and not fun. Being your own person and being unique is way better than trying to fit in with the crowd or letting others tell you how to live your life. I never tried to be average, I have always known that I’m a little weird but its something that I love and embrace, I would never try to hide it because being average isn’t any fun, being unique and yourself is what life should be about.
Hi Cailin,
I’m a little confused by how you trimmed the Rose quotation with ellipses (…). I feel like I’m missing an important point of what he’s saying and that I need at least some of what’s missing in the ellipses. Can you fill in the missing ideas please? Also, I can see that you reject the idea of sacrificing a sense of yourself as unique by embracing the idea of being average. Can you speculate about why some people, like those in the Rose piece, feel the need to adopt that identity when faced with the challenges of school?
I like how Mike Rose says how we should all consider our selves as common people. Its like he is trying to get us all to think that we should all be like each other and all act the same. He talks about how people “protect themselves from such suffocating madness by taking on with a vengeance the identity implied in the vocational track. Reject the confusion and frustration by openly defining yourself as the Common Joe” (Rose, 29).
I personally would not like to consider myself as a “Common Joe”. I would not like to be like everyone else because thats boring and you don’t really learn anything if you’re just like everyone else. Its great to be your own person and be who you are and not let others change you. Mike Rose also states how we should “Rely on your own good sense” (Rose, 29). I completely agree with this statement that he makes because he is saying how we should listen to ourselves and make our own decisions.
What I have learned is that when it comes to making decisions in life, we should really only listen to ourselves and make our own decisions for us and not let other people just run our lives.
add a comment to this post, in which you include, attribute, explain, and cite a passage from “I Just Wanna Be Average” that resonates with you. Your goal in your comment is to explain something new-to-you that have learned about literacy by looking at this passage through the lenses of one or more of Juliane Koepcke’s survival strategies.
the intellectul equivalent of playing with your food i learned that their is people that just give up after highschool or even before highschool, that they just dont care about themselves enough to make thier lives better, this makes me angry cause then why aare they wasting resiources that could be used for people that actually want to learn and want to become better at a craft. why wouldnt they just not even bother showing up to school if they dont want to learn. if your just gonna waste resources at least try and to learn is my thought. why cant they use the fear to fail to push them to do better instead of never trying and already failing
Hi Caleb, you write that people “just give up” on themselves, which makes it sound like giving up is a kind of character flaw. Part of what Rose and Alexei both perceive is that school is set up for some kinds of students to do well, and making it harder for other kinds of students to do well. Think about those kids who won’t talk at school, but know dozens of powwow songs in Alexie, or all the ways Rose’s buddies are street smart, but resist school learning. In what ways has your own schooling worked, maybe, both for and against you? In what ways has it enabled you to demonstrate your smarts, and maybe in other ways stood in your way?
As Rose explains,”… for the United States, the country where, the steamships companies claimed, prosperity is the way of life.” (11) This I believe is nothing close to being average. Looking and finding prosperity is being financially sound and not settling for any unwanted outcome. Thriving for more success.
Not only thriving for more success but achieving the success. As us young adults we have to focus on the little things that will make a difference. For example doing and completing your homework for every class to show a great work ethic and to push though whats expected. Being average or only wanting to be average is a personal choice but I don’t understand someones desire to just be average. We should be pushing the boundaries to what is just expected of us.
Something new I have learned from literacy by looking at “I just wanna be average” is on page 28 when Mike Rose says “We are talking about the parable of the talents, about achievement, working hard, doing the best you can do, blah-blah-blah, when the teacher called on the restive Ken Harvey for an opinion”. In case you missed it I will type it again, the author of this prompt typed ‘blah-blah-blah’. By him typing this it made me go back and reflect on how Koepecke says “Although she was afraid…, she used that fear as a resource for action” (22). Mike too used his fear, or in this case bravery, as a form of taking another step into a new direction. I see him including that section as a step into a new way of writing. He used his bravery and wrote exactly what was in his head.
Other people should expect the best when it comes to literacy writings, for Rose to change the way of typical way of writing and making a new engaging way. His type of writing, is a way that is understandable to all.
Rose states, “(Mr. Mitropetros) had little training in english, so his lesson plan for his day work had us read the district’s required text, Julius Caesar, aloud for the semester. We’d finish the play way before the twenty weeks was up, so he’d have us switch parts again and again”(25). This resonates with me because all throughout high school I had bad experiences with english teachers. It wasn’t so much that they had little training, but more were unmotivated and not passionate to teach so many of my lesson plans looked the same as Roses. Looking at Koepcke’s survival strategies, there is something new to learned about literacy. One of her strategies was an inner-resource, a state of mind that allowed her to make do with what the moment offered. This strategy relates to bad english teachers because students are put in bad situations and have to learn to make do with what the moment offers. In conclusion, what I have learned about literacy is that you have to be very open minded and flexible in order to be good writer. In order to learn and have good take aways from writing you must utilize Koepcke’s survival skills and be able to translate her lessons into lessons to use in english, and other aspects of life.
Hi Ciara, I think it’s interesting how you apply the strategy of “making do” to the situation of having to learn from uninspiring teachers. I’d love to hear more about how you, or might have, maximized your learning in that situation, because it’s a common problem you’ll continue to face. What concrete strategies could some use to make do and improve their engagement in such a learning situation?
Rose says, “The vocational track, however, is most often a place for those who are just not making it, a dumping ground for the disaffected. There were a few teachers who worked hard at education; young brother Slattery, for example, combined a stern voice with weekly quizzes to try to pass along to us a skeletal outline of world history. But mostly teachers had no idea how to engage the imaginations of us kids who were scuttling along at the bottom” (26). I think he is saying how he doesn’t want to end up in this vocational track because he feels that its not all his fault for being at the bottom but, its the teachers fault because they dot know how to engage with the kids that end up at the bottom.
A new piece of literacy that i learned looking at this passage would defiantly how to be creative with writing. Although this became new to me through fear, For example: “Although she was afraid…, she used that fear as a resource for action” (22). The main reason for fearing this new literacy idea is , the fact that i somehow need to learn this new idea that is a key characteristic for success for writing great pieces.
Need to finish (will finish sometime today)
Mike Rose begins to say “Switching to College Prep was a mixed blessing. I was an erratic student. I was undisciplined. I hadn’t caught onto the rules of the game: Why work hard in a class that didn’t grab my fancy?” (30)This shows the strategy of pushing through fear and using it as a resource. He was afraid to get thrown into a completely different world of education compared to what he was used to in the Voc. Ed classes he was used to. He was used to not only having teachers that weren’t the best but students that surrounded him with the mindset that school really didn’t matter. College prep was completely different. He was surrounded by people who wanted to learn, teachers that overall wanted to teach, and classes that had a harder work load then what he was used to.
Reading Rose’s passage reminds me a little of my own literacy narrative. Personally I had a lot of trouble grasping concepts in certain subjects and wasn’t always in the highest classes. Then I was asked if I was interested in taking some AP classes and honors in social studies. That was a completely different world to me, the course load, how serious everyone took the class. This also reminds me of Superman and me because they were both in lower levels of schooling surrounded by people who didn’t care, but they both rose above the rest. Ways they did that were putting in extra effort, getting into higher classes, and continuing on with their education despite their home situations they were unfortunately put into.
I really enjoyed reading Rose’s passage because I like how it shows the other side of individuals that do in fact struggle in school. Most people don’t really see or understand that side of it. The few passages I have read over the past few days have been really eye opening. I have learned ways to push through if I’m struggling with my writing and also about stories I can connect with for my literacy narrative. Everything in the past few days we have read in a way ties together in helping us with our writing and literacy narrative.
Hi Chelsey, I love the moment in this narrative where you talk about your experience making the transition to AP classes. I’d like to hear more about it, and what meaning you make of it. I wonder if the part of the passage you quoted about about catching on to the rules of the game might help you express how you adapted to the world of AP, and put your own words to how your eyes have been opened.
In the passage Mike Rose states “Students will float to the mark you set. I and the others in the vocational classes were bobbing in pretty shallow water.” (26) What he is saying in this is that students are always floating to this bar that has been set and because of where they were learning the bar was so low that they didn’t have to try or really learn anything from their schooling experiences. Really the only major ideas that they learned was social skills.
I personally was very lucky to grow up in the place I did. We were always pushed to do our best and perform over the standard. My graduating class did have it slackers but those kids were still putting up 3.5 GPA’s. Our bar was set so high that it was always a competition to see who was the best. So I wasn’t that our bar was set to low and it was like sitting in the kiddie end of the pool. It was more like your sitting at the bottom of the ocean hold a huge rock trying to hit that bar.
With my literacy I have seen that I really have to face the fear of failure and have to fight for my ability to get my writing done. Its like one of the creative writing rules is persevering and making it work.
I love this line: “So I[t] wasn’t that our bar was set to low and it was like sitting in the kiddie end of the pool. It was more like your sitting at the bottom of the ocean hold a huge rock trying to hit that bar.”
How did your feelings in that situation compared to the passage in Rose’s where he tries “to explain how it feels to see again and again material you should have learned once but didn’t” (starts on p. 30).
While reading “I Just Wanna Be Average” Rose talks about “Switching to College Prep was a mixed blessing. I was an erratic student. I was disciplined. And I hadn’t caught on to the rules of the game ” (30 Rose). Like Rose when he talks about switching classes I felt the same way about switching from high school to college. All though I was happy to start a new chapter in my life, I’m also beyond scared that I’m going to mess up in college and not live up to what I want to do in life.
With this whole transition of going to a new place, be away from your comfort zone, and starting the next chapter in your book of life. You can be afraid to make it your own it’s your book and your life and you have to make your own rules. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, because everyone is the same boat. Well when it comes to being a freshman. You never know what it’s going to be like if you plan by the book. But you improvise and do what you believe is right then you’ll be able to do anything.
From everything that I have taken from this class so far is that college is completely different from what you believe is right in high school. There are rules that you follow. But there are rules that you follow ,that are your own.
I love this post, Kenny, especially the way you start with Rose’s quote about not quite catching on to the rules of the game, and then come back to the idea of rules at the end, after moving through you own experiences. That’s a pretty sophisticated move. What do you think it takes to “catch on” to the “rules of the game” in college? Can someone help you do this? Does it have to be done by yourself? How long does it take?
The passage that resonates with me from “I Just Wanna Be Average” is. Mike Rose explains ” It wasn’t just that I didn’t know things-didn’t know how to simplify algebraic fractions, couldn’t identify different kinds of clauses, bungled Spanish translations-but that I had developed various faulty and inadequate ways of doing algebra and making sense of Spanish” (26). I have learned that there can can be an easier way of learning writing than what I have always known to be correct. I see now that as Juliane Koepecke survived by thinking outside of the box and not doing “normal”, So can I do the same with writing. I can create writing pieces that don’t have to follow the standards of how I learned to write.
The literacy experiences that Mike Rose writes about are similar to what Sherman Alexie writes in “Superman and Me”. In both writings each character talks about how either they are expected to be in a certain class of schooling. Rose for instance worked hard and made it out of his vocational classes and into college prep. Meanwhile Alexie writes about how Indian’s were never to be out of their class and cannot join into the ranks of the white man. Alexie states ” We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid. Most lived up to those expectations inside the classroom but subverted them on the outside. They struggled with basic reading in school but could remember how to sing a few dozen powwow songs”(1/2).
To end this I have learned that with literacy writing you have to think outside of the box. If you try to follow that which you already know, you will never fully understand the meaning behind writing.
Hi Alex, I’d love to hear more about why that particular passage from Rose resonated with you. I think one of the amazing things about Rose is that his exit from the vocational classes came about by accident. Someone noticed a mistake in the records. His promotion comes about as a result of a random event, not because someone noticed his potential. I wonder to what degree external factors can shape our learning and literacy experiences. You might think about this for Alexei as well as yourself.
The despair of being average. Mike Rose captured it beautifully, the pain of being only average. It’s something that happens so commonly, to “protect themselves from such suffocating madness by taking on with a vengeance… Reject the confusion and frustration by openly defining yourself as the Common Joe” (Rose, 29). I’ve never looked at being average that way before. It’s the exact opposite of what Juliane Koepecke did to survive. They kill themselves. Not learning is actually very trying. All information is forced from you. All you do is reject is all of your potential .
Being average is the worst thing that anyone could strive for. And that’s what I used to do. Looking back now, my childhood was spent trying to fit in. It was only recently, within the last few years, that being average became too hard to maintain. Being average, normal, can make someone so distraught. Who wants to cultivate nothing but stupidity, and rely only on the basics to survive (29)? When connections are made, that’s when writing gets more complex. Your brain is made up of billions of neurons that all intertwine to form thought and ideas. Why should writing only be influenced by your own thought? Writing is an interactive process. Taking ideas from one another to create connections, makes for a higher level of intelligence.
Learning and writing, none of it should be average. That should never be the goal. To be grand or crazy, something outside of the box that’ll produce something new, that should be the goal. Literacy is nothing more than what we make of it. So why would we make it average?
I think the passage you chose to write about, Cali, provides the beginning of a line of thought that could help with your closing question. Ken Harvey was protecting himself from something by declaring that he just wanted to be average (Rose 28). What was he protecting himself from? Think about Harvey’s experience in light of Sherman Alexei’s tribal age-mates. What makes their choice an understandable and even a logical response to the schooling situation they’re in? What would have to change to change their protective response?
Mike Rose states ” Ken Harvey was gasping for air. School can be a tremendously disorienting place. No matter how bad the school, your going to encounter notions that don’t fit with the assumptions and beliefs that you grew up with…, You’ll also be thrown in with all kind of kids from all kinds of backgrounds, and that can be unsettling.” ( pp 28). In this passage I think Rose is saying that there is always things no matter where you go in life that are going to be different. It may be astonishing at first and may even scare you enough it takes your breath away. This is okay, its okay to have someone else state their beliefs. Be accepting and if you feel the need state yours as well. Everyone is different in one way or the other.
I would say I have learned to use my fear to push me to succeeding and continue trying. It’s scary to do something new and or unusual. You cannot let that stop you though. Take that fear and run with it.
Switching high schools in the middle of the year was a really scary thing for me. Especially with the rep that the high school I was moving to had. It was way more diverse in ethnic backgrounds and races and religions than I was prepared for. I was told I wouldn’t make it anywhere by going to that school. But here I am, 20 hours away from home living out my dream. Going into school scared wasn’t the best but I learned so much. I went to an African culture fair, participated in making German and French food for post prom. It was the best eye opener ever and i’m glad I had an open enough mind to be okay with the differences and make the best out of it.
I have learned to be okay with change and being open to the difference in lives and cultures and beliefs of others. You never know where someone else has walked in their shoes so be okay with it. I feel like writing out this thought process taught me to continue to be okay with being afraid and running with the fear to take me somewhere far and unknown.
Hi Michaela, I feel like I need a little more context about Ken Harvey to really understand what Rose is talking about in this passage. Can you provide it, and see how it might contribute to what you say about being unsettled by your school change?
A passage that resonates with me is when he says “…you’re going to encounter notions that don’t fit with the assumptions and beliefs you grew up with-…” I like this passage because I think it relates to the college experience. You can’t always be close-minded, if Koepecke had followed the rules and stayed by the crash site she may not have survived, but because she improvised and went to find food and water, she survived.
I think that Mike Rose’s literacy experiences relate to mine because he was just thrown into the college prep course after being in the vocational course for all those years. Although my experience is not the same, it is similar. I had the mix of honors classes and college prep classes in high school, although I feel like the college prep classes didn’t necessarily prepare me for college. Most of the teacher will tell you “this is how it’s going to be in college” but when you actually get to college it is the complete opposite.
What I have learned about literacy from this post is that you shouldn’t be afraid to accept new ideas even if they are different from the views you had before. Also, be prepared for new challenges, and embrace them. I think dealing with a new challenge is the best way to learn something new. I think that if you’re not open to learning something new, then you will never grow as a person.
Hi Blake, can you say a little more about the particular situation that Rose finds himself in such that his assumptions and beliefs are challenged? There are a lot of situations where our assumptions and beliefs are reinforced. In fact, most of us seek out those situations that confirm our beliefs. How does Rose come to value having his assumptions and beliefs challenged?