Bryanna Mallo

What is average?
In Mike Roses article I Just Wanna Be Average he talks about several of his classmates and what their stereo types are according to other classmates. One of his classmates, Ken Harvey, stuck out to him because during a class discussion he said, I just wanna be average. You see, Ken Harvey just wanted to be noticed as something other than what people assumed of him. He was gasping for air (Rose 186). Many students feel this way during their school years because everything is pushed on you quickly and you are forced to learn it all- even if its not just book related. Ken Harvey was the jock that everyone knew from sports, but even though he was good at sports, he wanted to be average, just like he thought everyone else was. Schools today are labeling students, but what they are really doing is telling students that they cannot strive to do better or defy the odds. Telling them that they are not good enough for anything other than vocational classes; why not let them challenge themselves in an AP class? Whats the harm? Are the students in AP classes the average students? Or are the vocational students? Who gets to decide? Can you even define average? You cannot define average because every individual is unique in their own way; no two people are exactly alike. Are schools trying to make all students the same? Are they trying to make them more average? Like a conveyor belt, spitting them out like identical toys? John Gatto tackles this question in his article Against School. He says that schools have three main goals and they are: 1. To make good people, 2. To make good citizens, and 3. To make each person his or her best (Gatto). Schools are trying to make all students the same, but what is the point? In my opinion, I do not think that schools should shoot to make all of their students the same. By doing that, they

are basically saying that you cannot be your own unique person, but that you must be like everyone else. In Anne Dysons article The Blobs and the X-People there are two little girls that defy the odds against them. The girls break that barrier that separates them from boys just because society says they are average when it comes to being a girl. When someone sees a teenage girl walking down the street, they generally think she is boy obsessed and clothes obsessed. This is not true. Most of my friends are just the opposite. They care more about the important issues around the world than what big sale is going on at the mall. Society sees teenage girls this way because the majority of them are boy obsessed and clothes obsessed. And then society lumps all teenage girls into that category that they think is the average teenage girl. Teachers and faculty in schools are generally there to teach the students the facts so they can get good outcomes on the standardized tests by their students. This makes it stressful on students to make sure they know everything that they will be tested on. When the teachers and administrators get the results, some teachers will assume that a student is average because they scored around the average grade. Does that grade make that student average? Should teachers and administrators assume the student is average from one tests score? Through my years in school, I have been labeled as average because I didnt take all of the advanced classes. I took some harder classes, but I didnt kill myself with the classes and work. Because of this, my teachers and classmates always saw me as average. Being known as average can have negative and positive effects on someone. Some people will become so used to the idea of being average that they do not try to go beyond what is expected. While on the other hand, some people will use that as a way to push themselves to be better. I am the kind of person who will back down if someone tells me I cannot do something. I have never been the

kind of person to really want to prove someone wrong. It depends on what it is though. If it has to do with school, then I am more likely to push through it and prove my classmates and teacher wrong. But if it has to do with life, then I will back down. On the other hand, my mom is the kind of person that will fight to prove someone wrong, especially when they say she cannot do something. Because of this, using the term average is not something that you should use to define someone; the outcome could come out positively or negatively.

Works Cited Dyson, Anne. The Blobs and the X-People: New Perspectives on Old Representations. Writing Superheroes: Contemporary Childhood, Popular Culture, and Classroom Literacy. New York: Teachers College Press, 1997. 66-85. Print. Gatto, John. Against Schooling. Harpers Magazine June 2009. Web. 12 February 2013. Rose, Mike. I just wanna be average. Lives on the Boundary. New York: Free Press, 1989. Print.