Analysis Of Cathy Davidson's 'Project Classroom Makeover'

At the turn of the digital era, it is crucial for the educational system to acclimate and prepare students for new progressive career opportunities. In Cathy Davidson’s essay, “Project Classroom Makeover,” the use of personal, professional, and cultural anecdotes are used to strengthen her argument for the use of more innovative, collaborative, and technological teaching methods in the classroom. Davidson’s relevant organization and incorporation of the Duke iPod experiment and United States job market and educational history illustrate the need for educational renovation and greatly advance her claims. However, the second half of her essay complicates her main argument for digitalization and instead focuses on the need to replace the dehumanizing standardization of education and combining play into the classroom by focusing on children whose talents fall outside of the system’s norms and her mother-in-law’s outdated teaching methods.
Davidson and other esteemed …show more content…
However, in the second half of her essay, Davidson’s incorporation of her mother-in-law’s teaching methods complicate her call for technologically renovating the classroom, as she references outdated and non digital methods of teaching. While increased physical play in the classroom humanizes students, Davidson fails to realize that inclusion of her mother-in-law in her essay does not advance her claims for a relevant, digitally-centered educational system. Overall, Davidson’s essay is structured with the first half strongly supporting her claims, while the second half of her essay, including standardization, talent’s of children who fall outside the normal educational spectrum, and her mother-in-law, distracting and undermining her otherwise valid