Part 1: MLA Citation
Berliner, Wendy. ““Schools Are Killing Curiosity”: Why We Need to Stop Telling Children to Shut up and Learn.” The Guardian, The Guardian, 28 Jan. 2020, www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jan/28/schools-killing-curiosity-learn.
In the article “School Kills Curiosity”, the writer Wendy Berliner writes about how curious young students are being shut down by teachers because of the educational systems. The writer introduces the article with a scene of young students with their teacher in the classroom. They were teaching the kids about weather and there was thunder outside their classroom. Furthermore, they had so many concerns and the teacher “draw their attention back.” This concludes how teachers juststick to the agenda. The writer also mentions that “promoting curiosity is a foundation for early learning that we should be emphasizing more than we look at academic achievement.” Some teachers think asking questions is disturbing the class and for not learning. For example, the writer mentions a ninth grader raising her hand and her teacher stopped her mid-sentence and said “it’s time for learning.” Teachers are killing the young students curiosity. This concludes that teachers think that asking questions is disruptive.
Part 3: Rhetorical Analysis
The genre is feature piece. The author,Wendy Berliner wrote the article “Schools are killing Curiosity”. She’s credible because she wrote a book called “How to Succeed at School”. The author’s writing style is very informative and objective .The author uses ethos to appeal the audience by showing that she wrote a book encouraging asking questions proving her credibility. She also uses logos to appeal the audience by stating studies that are led by researchers such as Dr.Prachi Shah and Susan Engel about the curiosity in children. Lastly, she used pathos to appeal the audience by in the beginning with the interaction between the teacher and student. The teacher wanted to move along the with the curriculum shutting down the young curious student question. The purpose of writing this article was to inform the parents and the people about the education system and what to expect from schools. This issue remains relevant, as the article was published in 2020, just four years ago. Wendy Berliner being a parent herself was motivated by personal experience to address these concerns, which led her to write her book. Both the author and the publication are highly credible, and Berliner strengthens her argument by logically referencing a research studies to support her claims.
Part 4-Notable Quotes
1. “The latest American research suggests we should be encouraging questions, because curious children do better”. (Berliner,line 7
2. “Children should be prompted and encouraged to ask questions even though that can be challenging for the teacher,” he says. “We do need to find some time for questions during the day. There is not enough time in schools for creativity and following up on curiosity.” (Berliner lines 48-50)
3. “Children are born curious. The number of questions a toddler can ask seem infinite-it is one of the critical methods humans adopt to learn”. (Berliner paragraph 9)