Analysing I Just Want to be Average Essay Example

📌Category: Education, Student's Life
📌Words: 1141
📌Pages: 5
📌Published: 27 May 2021

I just want to be average is written by Mike Rose and explains the problems with the schooling system. Mike Rose is a professor in education and informative studies at UCLA  and has  taught in Los Angeles since 1968(Mike Rose article). Rose struggled with his own problems as being a student in school since Rose placement test got mixed up with another Rose and got sent to vocational education school(PDF pg. 1).  Mike explains that schools write kids off as tremendous, and unrealized potential so most kids just go though high school with anger,fear, and bored(PDF pg. 1).

I just want to be average starts off with A character named Mike Rose, Rose was taking a placement test to get into high school and his test scores get mixed up with another person name Rose which sends Mike rose to a vocational education school named Our Lady of Mercy. Rose explains the problems with the lots of the teachers in school since most of them came to class poorly prepared and don't have the skills to teach. Rose explains that Mr. Mcfarland was his best teacher and was the one that helped him get into Loyola University and also gave rose a loan for school since Rose could never afford a private college with it(PDF pg. 1-7).  Mike Rose uses rhetorical devices in I Just want to be Average such as Imagery, juxtaposition, and metaphors to explain the problems that students have when entering vocational school. The rhetorical devices are effective since it give the writing emotion and relatable feeling to anyone reading it for the first time.

Mike rose uses the first rhetorical device which is Imagery. Imagery is used throughout the novel to explain the area and the setting. When brother Dill is introduced it explains that Dill was a troubled and unstable man that had taught freshman english and when his students had drifted away from him he would get paranoid and even shake and smack the students(PDF pg. 1).  Rose explains the harsh environment that had been taking place at a vocational school.  Sophomore english was taught by a man named Mr. Mitropetros and had little to no knowledge teaching english and his night job was parking cars(PDF pg.2).

Mr. Mitropetros lesson plan was the required text which was Julius Caesar  and had the kids read it again, and again , and again since they had finished it 21 weeks before the school semester ended(PFG pg.2). This imagery sets up  a setting to show how poorly trained Mitropetros was and how he only had the kids read Julius Caesar for the whole class semester. Billy Hawk was a hot tempered kid and finally broke and hit a kid named Mike Dietz and they had a fights which lead to chair being thrown tables being pushed and their teacher Mr. Montez broke the fight up and it broke Montez weak authority(PDF PG.2). Rose explained that Montex was a small quiet man that had a very weak authority(Pg.2) that when they broke his authority the kids weren't ready to to be free they were embarrassed and scared(Pg.2).  Rose explains the harsh environments in a vocational school that most kids weren't expecting today.

The next rhetorical device is juxtaposition.  Rose uses juxtaposition to explain the differences between bad teachers and the good teachers in the book. The bad teachers were Brother dill, Mr. Mitropetros and Mr. Montez while the good teachers were Mr. Mcfarland and brother Clint. Brother dill was a very unstable man as mentioned above and was paranoid when kids weren't listening to him which lead him to shake and smack the kids(Pg.1). As from the evidence stated Brother Dill was a horrible teacher since the only way for him to get this students attention again was to use physical abuse. Mr. Mitropetros had little to no teaching skills and only knew how to do was make the kids read Julius Caesar over and over again since he didn't know how to teach(Pg2.) Mr. Mitropetros from the facts stated was a horrible teacher and even  brags about him parking cars for a living at night(pg.2). Mr Montez was a short quiet man that was prepared for it as a doily maker at a hammer throw(pg2).

Mr. Montez was to relaxed man to control a rowdy class(pg2) which later 2 kids get into a fight and break his weak authority(pg2.). The good teachers according to Rose were the ones that helped him which were Mcfarland and Brother Clint. Brother Clint was a very handsome powerful young man and no-one gave him any trouble(pg. 4). Rose also states that his lectures were very interesting and if one class got tough Clints class would be even tougher(Pg 4). Brother Clint was also the one that found that there was an error with Roses placement test and had Rose switched from vocational education to College prep program(Pg.4).

Brother clint basically helped Rose get into college prep program the rhetorical device is juxtaposition wince Rose basically compared Brother Clint as the best teacher while Mitropetros,Montez, and Brother dill were the worst. Jack Mcfarland lectures are crafted, made difficult book accessible with his own explanations( pg.5). Roses also states that Mcfarland also helped him with a loan so he can go to a private university that Mcfarland got Rose(pg 6-7). Rose states that Mcfarland was the best thing to happen to him(pg.5). So Rose basically uses Juxtaposition to explain the environment that being in a vocational school but also shows that their are some nice teachers that will help you but not often. Rose also states that most teachers didn't know how to engage with their students to get them to work harder(pg.2).

The next rhetorical device used to explain the environment of vocational school is Metaphors.  A good example of a metaphor used when rose states “Students will float to the mark you set. I and the others in the vocational classes were bobbing in pretty shallow water(Pg.2)”. Rose basically means that when you set your expectations low for your students then you will get low participations and when you have high expectations than students will do better to please you. Rose also states that most kids were scuttling along at the bottom of the pond(pg. 2).  Again most of the kids didn't have high expectations of them so they did poorly than other kids at the other schools. Another metaphor Rose used is “ Quick as a spasm, Dweetz was out of his seat, scattering desks, cracking Billy on the side of the head, right behind the eye”(Pg. 2). This again goes with when kids are bored and had low expectations from teachers so it caused them to do the bare minimum or what Rose says “I just want to be Average”.

The rhetorical devices are imagery, Juxtaposition, and metaphors. Rose used Juxtaposition to show differences between the good and bad teachers. Rose used Metaphors which showed how the students felt when in school. Then rose also used imagery to show us a glimpse of how it was to be in a vocational school. Rose wrote what was wrong with vocational schools and used to effective rhetorical devices to show evidence. Rose did a very good job on writing this article and is recommended to anyone that thinks the schooling system of vocational education is wrong.

 

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