"I Just Wanna Be Average"

Rose described vocational education as "...a place for those who are just not making it, a dumping ground for the disaffected" (Rose - p.2). Rose's teachers did not seem to equip the necessary "inventiveness" needed to help the students in the vocational education program. As a result, students fail to learn true job skills such as effective communication and problem-solving. This leads students to be frustrated and care less about studying and challenging themselves. "I did what I had to do to get by, and I did it with half a mind" (Rose - p. 2) Intellectually, Rose claims that in his time in Voc. Ed., he "developed further into a mediocre student and a somnambulant problem solver" (Rose - p. 2). Rose and his friends were given assignments to keep them busy, rather than help them improve.  Emotionally, I believe the students were unstable. I believe that Rose and his friends wanted to be acknowledged by their teachers however, with the passive staff, students became unresponsive. Socially, I believe this program brought the students together because they understood each other. They shared the same situation and feelings. "School can be a tremendously disorienting place" (Rose - p. 3). No matter which school we go to, we will always be surrounded with people, students or teachers, who do not agree with our opinions or beliefs. To lessen this constant blanket of pressure, some students block out all the noise and allow their minds to roam freely. However, Ken Harvey and other students "...protect themselves from such suffocating madness by taking on with a vengeance the identity implied in the vocational track" (Rose - p. 3).

This narrative caught my attention from the beginning. I noticed the formality of the story, however I also noticed the informal part. I was able to see some personality in this writing. The personality in the paper did not appear too much, but in the events that added emphasis to the main purpose of Rose's narrative, it was clearly evident. I want my paper to follow the organization and structure of the previous narratives we read and insert some of my personality as well.