School episode 1

This section of the school series is kind of interesting because it shows the start of the American educational system. The idea that everyone is the united states should be entitled to an education just makes sense based on the beliefs that our country is founded on. To create a country that aims to have no nobility and to have equal opportunity for all doesn't seem possible without there being a chance for everyone to learn. I also found it interesting that many of the same issues that the school systems faced at the time are still issues that we face now, even if not in the same capacity that those in the past dealt with them. We still find ourselves wondering how to combat the issue of inequality of facilities and materials though with a higher degree of support from both federal and local funds schools are more uniform than they would have otherwise been. Our schools see the biggest differences based on which state they are in as opposed to simply being in a town that has a higher SES but still SES plays into the state of the schools also. One of the big issues that we still deal with is wondering what the role of languages other than English will play in our school system. Our school systems are inundated with an increasing number of English language leaners and have to decide weather the way to handle this situation is to simply attempt to mainstream these students by increasing their english proficiency or if they should be allowed to work in, and honor, their native language. Also, there is some debate about how important it is for students to be learning a second language in schools. There is some movement to see students learning a second language at a younger age and I personally could not be more enthusiastic about it. For one, i think it is incredibly ignorant of the US to have our citizens only learning one language. most countries have their citizens learn more than one language and simply look at it as a chance to enrich thier population but for some reason we seem to look at learning any language aside from English as a sort of attempt to rob our society of its identity even though English isn't even the official language of the US! also, it is widely documented that learning a second language also helps individuals have greater proficiency in English. taking all this into consideration and remembering that alternate languages are on the rise in the US (most notably spanish) it seems irresponsible not to have our students learning another language at an early age where their brains are more apt to truely comprehend a new language.