Critical Reflection of the Fire Project
At the beginning of the Fire Project, I was really worried about taking action. I was mostly afraid of getting out of my comfort zone and trying to tell people why they should be worried about my topic. I consider myself to be a really shy person who, when placed with people I do not know and furthermore, in large groups of people, I worry and easily become intimidated. However, this was just the beginning when we started to talk about the Fire Project and it was stated that we would start earlier to get action in the mix of the multitude of essays we would write.
When I looked at the list of things we could talk about, I saw many topics that I am really interested in—there was domestic violence, global warming, LGTBQ awareness, and gender role issues. I could spend hours talking to people about these topics but once I really looked at what the topics were, I realized they all connected to the Paulo Freire belief that some people knew more in the world than others. The thought was revolutionary to me: people who are really educated on these issues like domestic violence only have their knowledge because they have either experienced it or researched it or had a genuine interest in the topic. Yet, beyond those three ways to engage with the topic, the amount of people who were educated on the topic is very small. The reason for the small amount is because of one thing: education. Education, and more specifically, the ability to attain resources regarding issues, is extremely limited to certain groups of people. If more people were aware of the issues they face, they would be more likely to react and take action on the issue. (This is where I connected the point of the Fire Project. It is not enough to be aware of the problems when you are a student at Social Justice—you have to do something about the issue that most resonates with you. Otherwise, there is no point to being a student at Social Justice.)
It made complete sense for me to look at education for my Fire Project issue. Along with the stress of paying the ultimate price of all my free time with homework and my dedication to learning, the stress of being a senior and filling out college applications last minute, I realized something really important was happening in front of me; Social Justice was being attacked by the Board of Education. The school that I loved so much and had taught me so much about the world I lived in was being broken down because of multiple factors that were out of our control. It was because of my education at Social Justice that I decided I wanted to become a teacher for students in high school. Reading pieces of Pedagogy of the Oppressed taught me that instead of accepting that we live in a world where there are two types of people—those who can manipulate others into oppression of any form and those who are oppressed—that someone needs to make a stand and help more people become aware of what they might not understand. Even before reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in my Honors United States History class, I was starting the Chicago History Fair where a topic had to be chosen to look at for revolution, reaction, and reform movements. I chose to look at a topic that was not ordinary. As I looked at the list of topics to choose from, I saw compulsory education. Having no idea what the word “compulsory” meant at first, I chose it and found that it was a great topic for me to research. Keeping up with my high on education, I decided to look into education at the high school level for the Fire Project.
Initially, my goal was to explain how Social Justice High School was not a good school because the administrators had made the environment at Social Justice unwelcoming. Through my four years at SoJo, I have been through three principal changes, a lack of funding that meant teachers would be fired and class sizes would increase, and a lost determination to continue learning. However, reflecting on how Pedagogy of the Oppressed explains that only the oppressed can become the change necessary to help end their oppression, I stopped complaining and looking at the negatives and started looking for the positives and the deeper meanings to the changes that happened around me. I blamed individual people for the problems I was having at SoJo when I should have looked at the bigger issue at hand. Through the project, I have learned about the small school model, the lack of funding for certain areas in the nation, what adults and other teens think about their educational experience and how people deal with the issues that their schools face.
Since my school was the only school I was really aware of that had any problems with the Board of Education in Chicago, I went back and researched how my school was founded and eventually came upon other stories of high schools that faced the same issue with the Board of Education. The documentaries Waiting for Superman and The Race to Nowhere helped me find statistics of compulsory education and education on the high school level in general. Now I had learned that problems with education were not only local, but they were state issues, national issues, and global issues. For example, the whole reason why Advanced Placement classes were created was to help America find the smartest and brightest students to help them become national leaders and compete with enemy countries like Russia during the Cold War. The reason why students in Japan are “smarter” than students in the United States is because they are in classes longer than Americans are. Even in America, some students are introduced to tougher and more challenging topics than others because they go to privatized or charter schools while public schools teach the bare minimum topics. Along with private or public education, the problems with suburbanization and city schools also bring inequalities to education. If a student lives in a city where there are higher statistics for violence and poverty, these environmental issues are more likely to impact the students’ chance at achieving a high school diploma and access to higher education than a student in a suburb where there are not as many poor people and violence. Basically, what I learned in my Fire Project teetered on sociology and psychology of groups of people.
As I started doing more research about my topic, I started getting carried away with the things I could argue. I could talk about how one’s place affects their education, how oppressive systems like the CPS system limits the depth of thousands of children’s education, how public school systems would be better regulated as a national or bureaucratic issue, or how the difference between public education and private education is morally unfair to children in the public system. This really affected my essays as in some I would talk about the small school model and in others I would talk about the inequalities of private learning to public learning, even in my action; I would talk about education being a national issue. With a lot of different things to talk about, and research completed, the only thing left was to take action.
In my Advanced Placement U.S. Government and Politics class, we just finished an amendment project where we took an issue we felt strong about and tried to make an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would end our issue. Of course, I chose education. However, I chose a topic to be taught in schools nationwide. I chose to look at the teaching of the nation’s history. Knowing that it is compulsory to teach the United States Constitution to students in seventh grade and again sophomore year, and have students take a course in the History of the United States, to create better-rounded, educated citizens of America, I asked to teach Human Rights to the students of America. If a student can learn something that is very limited to one nation, then they could learn something that affects everyone around the globe because although the United States Constitution states that citizens have rights that are protected by the government and from other citizens, these rights are not stated specifically. The Human Rights amendments state those rights. So, along with a new position in the President’s cabinet that focuses on education, and makes sure education is regulated with asking district officials, state representatives, governors, and mayors to check in with the cabinet member, the teachings of the Human Rights would also take place in the freshman year of high school nationally. Students in other parts of the world, like Japan, already have courses exploring this topic. If America wants to have a fighting chance to have the best “world leaders”, America has to start in the schools.
After three weeks of not being sure what to do, I finally had the right idea. In week one, I was too busy with AP testing that I was not able to do anything about my project. I had felt like I let future generations down. In the second week, phone calls to individuals that have power in interest groups and in the CPS system failed as no one would accept my calls. Feeling extremely overwhelmed and hopes deflated, I turned to mailing out letters to Congressmen and the Secretary of State for Illinois. I figured if people were already aware of the copious amount of issues with education, then the people that really needed to understand the issues were those with a different kind of power. Political and financial power is also needed to fight the problems with education. The Chicago Teachers Union and the protests that have gone on to try to influence people in economical power and political power helped guide me to this action. Surely, one way the politicians and government officials would have to listen to the cries of people power. So, in my last week of taking action, I decided to write a letter and work on getting the word out to those with money power. This way I joined the ranks of the 99% and the people I really admired in the fight for equality.
Realizing that change does not happen overnight, I decided that even when the Fire Project is over, I will still make disappointing phone calls and write letters, create emails, video blogs, anything I have to do until I see some form of change happen. As an aspiring educator, I want to make sure I have done everything possible to help benefit students in their educational career just like how my teachers at Social Justice High School have helped me become a better student. Today, I stand as a researcher, writer, politically active, individual who has a sense of right and wrong, destination, and will to be the very best for the sake of the human race. As people at my school always say, “Continue the struggle, the struggle continues” and I am ready to fight.
When I looked at the list of things we could talk about, I saw many topics that I am really interested in—there was domestic violence, global warming, LGTBQ awareness, and gender role issues. I could spend hours talking to people about these topics but once I really looked at what the topics were, I realized they all connected to the Paulo Freire belief that some people knew more in the world than others. The thought was revolutionary to me: people who are really educated on these issues like domestic violence only have their knowledge because they have either experienced it or researched it or had a genuine interest in the topic. Yet, beyond those three ways to engage with the topic, the amount of people who were educated on the topic is very small. The reason for the small amount is because of one thing: education. Education, and more specifically, the ability to attain resources regarding issues, is extremely limited to certain groups of people. If more people were aware of the issues they face, they would be more likely to react and take action on the issue. (This is where I connected the point of the Fire Project. It is not enough to be aware of the problems when you are a student at Social Justice—you have to do something about the issue that most resonates with you. Otherwise, there is no point to being a student at Social Justice.)
It made complete sense for me to look at education for my Fire Project issue. Along with the stress of paying the ultimate price of all my free time with homework and my dedication to learning, the stress of being a senior and filling out college applications last minute, I realized something really important was happening in front of me; Social Justice was being attacked by the Board of Education. The school that I loved so much and had taught me so much about the world I lived in was being broken down because of multiple factors that were out of our control. It was because of my education at Social Justice that I decided I wanted to become a teacher for students in high school. Reading pieces of Pedagogy of the Oppressed taught me that instead of accepting that we live in a world where there are two types of people—those who can manipulate others into oppression of any form and those who are oppressed—that someone needs to make a stand and help more people become aware of what they might not understand. Even before reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in my Honors United States History class, I was starting the Chicago History Fair where a topic had to be chosen to look at for revolution, reaction, and reform movements. I chose to look at a topic that was not ordinary. As I looked at the list of topics to choose from, I saw compulsory education. Having no idea what the word “compulsory” meant at first, I chose it and found that it was a great topic for me to research. Keeping up with my high on education, I decided to look into education at the high school level for the Fire Project.
Initially, my goal was to explain how Social Justice High School was not a good school because the administrators had made the environment at Social Justice unwelcoming. Through my four years at SoJo, I have been through three principal changes, a lack of funding that meant teachers would be fired and class sizes would increase, and a lost determination to continue learning. However, reflecting on how Pedagogy of the Oppressed explains that only the oppressed can become the change necessary to help end their oppression, I stopped complaining and looking at the negatives and started looking for the positives and the deeper meanings to the changes that happened around me. I blamed individual people for the problems I was having at SoJo when I should have looked at the bigger issue at hand. Through the project, I have learned about the small school model, the lack of funding for certain areas in the nation, what adults and other teens think about their educational experience and how people deal with the issues that their schools face.
Since my school was the only school I was really aware of that had any problems with the Board of Education in Chicago, I went back and researched how my school was founded and eventually came upon other stories of high schools that faced the same issue with the Board of Education. The documentaries Waiting for Superman and The Race to Nowhere helped me find statistics of compulsory education and education on the high school level in general. Now I had learned that problems with education were not only local, but they were state issues, national issues, and global issues. For example, the whole reason why Advanced Placement classes were created was to help America find the smartest and brightest students to help them become national leaders and compete with enemy countries like Russia during the Cold War. The reason why students in Japan are “smarter” than students in the United States is because they are in classes longer than Americans are. Even in America, some students are introduced to tougher and more challenging topics than others because they go to privatized or charter schools while public schools teach the bare minimum topics. Along with private or public education, the problems with suburbanization and city schools also bring inequalities to education. If a student lives in a city where there are higher statistics for violence and poverty, these environmental issues are more likely to impact the students’ chance at achieving a high school diploma and access to higher education than a student in a suburb where there are not as many poor people and violence. Basically, what I learned in my Fire Project teetered on sociology and psychology of groups of people.
As I started doing more research about my topic, I started getting carried away with the things I could argue. I could talk about how one’s place affects their education, how oppressive systems like the CPS system limits the depth of thousands of children’s education, how public school systems would be better regulated as a national or bureaucratic issue, or how the difference between public education and private education is morally unfair to children in the public system. This really affected my essays as in some I would talk about the small school model and in others I would talk about the inequalities of private learning to public learning, even in my action; I would talk about education being a national issue. With a lot of different things to talk about, and research completed, the only thing left was to take action.
In my Advanced Placement U.S. Government and Politics class, we just finished an amendment project where we took an issue we felt strong about and tried to make an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would end our issue. Of course, I chose education. However, I chose a topic to be taught in schools nationwide. I chose to look at the teaching of the nation’s history. Knowing that it is compulsory to teach the United States Constitution to students in seventh grade and again sophomore year, and have students take a course in the History of the United States, to create better-rounded, educated citizens of America, I asked to teach Human Rights to the students of America. If a student can learn something that is very limited to one nation, then they could learn something that affects everyone around the globe because although the United States Constitution states that citizens have rights that are protected by the government and from other citizens, these rights are not stated specifically. The Human Rights amendments state those rights. So, along with a new position in the President’s cabinet that focuses on education, and makes sure education is regulated with asking district officials, state representatives, governors, and mayors to check in with the cabinet member, the teachings of the Human Rights would also take place in the freshman year of high school nationally. Students in other parts of the world, like Japan, already have courses exploring this topic. If America wants to have a fighting chance to have the best “world leaders”, America has to start in the schools.
After three weeks of not being sure what to do, I finally had the right idea. In week one, I was too busy with AP testing that I was not able to do anything about my project. I had felt like I let future generations down. In the second week, phone calls to individuals that have power in interest groups and in the CPS system failed as no one would accept my calls. Feeling extremely overwhelmed and hopes deflated, I turned to mailing out letters to Congressmen and the Secretary of State for Illinois. I figured if people were already aware of the copious amount of issues with education, then the people that really needed to understand the issues were those with a different kind of power. Political and financial power is also needed to fight the problems with education. The Chicago Teachers Union and the protests that have gone on to try to influence people in economical power and political power helped guide me to this action. Surely, one way the politicians and government officials would have to listen to the cries of people power. So, in my last week of taking action, I decided to write a letter and work on getting the word out to those with money power. This way I joined the ranks of the 99% and the people I really admired in the fight for equality.
Realizing that change does not happen overnight, I decided that even when the Fire Project is over, I will still make disappointing phone calls and write letters, create emails, video blogs, anything I have to do until I see some form of change happen. As an aspiring educator, I want to make sure I have done everything possible to help benefit students in their educational career just like how my teachers at Social Justice High School have helped me become a better student. Today, I stand as a researcher, writer, politically active, individual who has a sense of right and wrong, destination, and will to be the very best for the sake of the human race. As people at my school always say, “Continue the struggle, the struggle continues” and I am ready to fight.