Argumentative Essay On Our Kids

Words: 1421
Pages: 6

Education is like the jugular vein; it brings life to people and allows them to see aspects of life they would not see otherwise. In Robert D. Putnam’s “Our Kids” he breaks down the characteristics of life that determine a persons future. He speaks on family, community, the schools, and the environment in which people are brought up. By comparing and contrasting the wealthy and the poor, the two classes that when combined make up majority of the United States of America, he illustrates how the topics he speaks create the body that provides life to the brain, and that brain represents education. Furthermore, we have watched films that tell the history of education in America and through them we saw the legal side of education and different attempts by the government to push education forward, even though at times it hindered it. Analyzing the book and the films, this paper will touch on …show more content…
The first issue is programs created in schools that promote segregation. In chapter 1, the author talks about AP, advanced placement, classes in schools and how they separate the privileged and less privileged. These AP classes do a better job at preparing you for the SAT’s and college than regular classes. I know this because I was in AP classes and regular classes and I was one of the least privileged kids at my school. I witnessed how kids in regular classes joked about kids in AP classes in a manner that displayed their insecurities. The second issue is how education has reshaped gender roles (Putnam, p.73). Women that receive higher education are less likely to have kids early and marry early; these women are generally of the higher class. I experienced this as well because I went to a high school outside my district; it was a school with students of a higher economic class, pregnancy at this school was rare. However, at the school that was in my district women were pregnant more often and they were of a lower economic