Generes and My response to "The Case Against College"

For our next class assignment I would like to write a fable. This is because it requires including a lot of details in order to tell a story. I feel that I lacked strong details in many essays that I have have written before. Therefore, by forcing myself to write a piece that requires more details I will prove to myself that I have the skills and ability to improve my writing. An example of a short fable is http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?1&TheBearandtheTwoTravelers&&beartrav2.ram

"The Case Against College" by Dale Stephens

I learned from both Dale and Sir Ken Robinson that schools are taking away students creativity. This is because they are given a set of rules that they must follow and to quote Emerson they "drill" things into the students minds. This takes away students ability and willingness to think for themselves. College is no help to the lack of creativity, but it is necessary to get a high paying job. But unfortunately it no longer guarentees that a person can even get a job. Therefore the best way for a person to go about college is to make sure that they work outside of school and make sure that they take some creative opportunities.

What does Essentialism mean?

Before reading the article "Essentialism and Experience" I thought it would be best to know what essentialism was. The definition of essentialism quoted from the oxford dictionary is "The belief in real essences of things, esp. the view that the task of science and philosophy is to discover these and express them in definitions." In other words it means that science and philosophy are meant to discover things or beings and define them into categories. As I began to read, it became clear to me that the author felt that essentialism was not good, or that it was not being used in a good way.  She felt that Fuss used essentialism to categorize  many black writers in a negative way. In order to prove Fuss was wrong Hooks showed that Fuss did not know what she was talking about because she only read a few works of black writers and grouped them as one.

Experience: In this Hooks says that experience in the classroom is good and necessary. She states "Our collective listening to one another affirms the value and uniqueness of each voice." She believes that experience from diverse groups will make the classroom better. It is better to hear multiple views then just one. This is something that Fuss does not agree with.