Gaokao Essay

Every year, 9 million students all over China take a single test, the gaoko, over the course of several days.  This test determines where the students go to college, eventually their life, and the success of their teachers.  In preparation for the test, many high schools become places of cram memorization and strict punishments.  The gaokao is unreasonable because it puts so much pressure on students and teachers.

One reason the tests are unfair is that it turns schools into sole test preparation.  School's go to extreme measures to keep up their student's good grades.  The article, "China's Cram Schools, by Brook Larmer, states that, "Critics say it stifles creativity and puts excessive pressure on students.  Teenage suicide rates tend to rise as the gaokao nears.  Two years ago, a student posted a shocking photograph online: a classroom full of students all hooked up to intravenous drips to give them the strength to keep studying."  Schools focus more on protecting their reputation than an educating, stimulating environment.  By having the gaokao be worth so much in terms of a teacher's success it affects their goals in helping the students.  The article states that, "teachers dole out lessons, and frequently punishments, with military rigor; their jjob security and bonuses depend on raising their students' test scores."  Teachers loose sight of working towards their students improvement when they are constantly trying to help their selves.  The gaokao causes schools and teachers to have the wrong intentions as educators.

Another reason the tests aren't justified is that the test determines whether they become successful or a manual laborer.  Many of the students in the "cram schools," have parents who hope for their children's lives to be better than theirs were.  The article states that, "The rent on their tiny room was high, rivaling rates in downtown Beijing, and it represented only part of the sacrifice Yang's parents made to help him become the first in his family to attend college.  Yang's father is a peach farmer in a village 45 minutes away; his mother quit her garment-factory job to support Yang in his final year of cramming."  Parents risk everything in hope of their children doing well on the gaokao.  Also, the students fear a life of poverty and manual work if they fail the gaokao.  The article states that, "The boys knew that manual labor would be their fate too, if they failed to do well on the gaokao.  Yang and Cao would have to join the ranks of China's 260 million migrant workers, who have left their homes in rural China in search of construction or factory jobs in the nation's booming coastal cities."  After all of their preparation, the boys either get into a school that will put them on the right track for a life of education and hopefully prosperity or they will end up as factory or construction workers.  A single test that occurs once a year determines the life of the 9 million student that take it every year.

In China, millions of people are affected by the gaokao every year.  Unlike the ACT and SAT, which offer chances for make ups and redoing it, with opportunity's for economic success  despite failure on the test, the gaokao is the sole determiner of success.  Because of the pressure on it the gaokao leads to uncreative schools and stressed students hoping to live up to their parents expectations.

Martín Espada Essay

In Martín Espada's poems, "The New Bathroom Policy at English High School," "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson," and "Tw Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877," all explore ideas of racism in the United States.  The first shows the discomfort of a principal, the second shows the anger of the speaker at his name's mispronunciation, and the final is the story of a lynch mob "executing" two Mexicanos.  All three poems involve discomfort and often the transfer of it.

"The New Bathroom Policy," tells the story of a principal who bans spanish in the bathroom because of his  discomfort.  The principal fells that he must know what all of the kids are saying in order to fell in control.  the poem states that, "The only word he recognizes/ is his own name/ and this constipates him/ So he decides/ to ban Spanish/ from the bathrooms/ Now he can relax."  The principal is uncomfortable in the bathroom but by taking away the use of Spanish in the bathrooms, he isn't allowing students to speak their first language with their peers.  Also, in reading this poem, the use of the word, "constipates," makes the reader feel discomfort, bringing them into the setting of the tension in the bathroom.  While the principal believes he is justified by making himself more at ease, his students are forced to speak a language that they may not know well or speak fluently, causing a sense of alienation in them.

In "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson" the speaker transfers his annoyance of the mispronunciation of his name to people who he sees as racist and don't make an effort to assimilate.  In the poem the speaker fantasizes going out of his way to make others uncomfortable by personifying their view of Latino men.  The speaker imagines going to, "put on dark eye glasses/ push my beret at an angle/ comb my beard to a point."  The speaker feels that he should represent the stereotype of how racists perceive latino men.  Another way the speaker fantasizes about bring discomfort on the racists is by forcing, "them to chant/ anti-American slogans/ in spanish" The people he imagines doing this to consider themselves patriots and the representation of a true, "American" but being put in a position of being forced to speak an unknown language is similar to immigrant children in America schools.

In "Two Mexicanos," the speaker feels uncomfortable looking at a photograph of people crowding into a photograph after a lynching.  Thee poem expresses how the speaker looking at the picture is most disgusted by the fact that all of the lynchers are trying to get in the photo after their actions.  The first three stanzas are spent, "more than," one sad part of the picture, but the  last stanza explains how the part that makes the speaker most uneasy is how the lynchers are, "all/ crowding into the photograph."  Discomfort is also shown by some people in the photo graph.   the poem states that in the lynching party, there were, "a few stunned/ in the blur of execution," showing how after lynching two men, some feel possible remorse, or don't want to be captured into a photo.  In this poem the discomfort is mainly felt by the speaker, who is disturbed by the photo.

In his poems, Martín Espada, uses the ideas of discomfort to show the feelings of people both latino, and conservative, predominately white.  Often times, in order to regain power and a sense of ease, someone who feels threatened tries to put others in discomfort.  The principal takes away the comfort of language from students in the bathroom, a man angry about the mispronunciation of his name fantasizes about forcing Republicans into an uncomfortable position, and someone viewing a picture is disturbed by the eagerness of people to get in the shot after a lynching has occurred.  But most of all, Espada tries to evoke discomfort in the reader causing strong feelings in them.