Progress Meaning

Having read this short story, I may say that it is difficult to understand it at all, but at the same time it is interesting and catchy. While you read it, the characters involve and take you in to the story making you feel as one of them.

On the other hand, after reading and discussing in class I could identify a number of key words that help me to read between lines (immobility, isolation, mechanization, etc.) and infer some hidden meanings. However, I think the most relevant word or concept developed through the story is progress and how it affects people’s daily routine. In this sense, the story conveys exactly the contrasting outcomes which progress may have. For instance, as a result of progress we may obtain mobility, connectivity and money but it always generates the centralization of success. Unfortunately, it means the segregation and marginalization of the poorest population.

According to an educational point of view, I think we can associate this topic with what standardized educational practices are causing nowadays. For instance, with these kind of tests we make generalization about students; taking their quality of being different away. Students understanding performance is only being measure with these tests which catalogue students according to their grades or final scores.

In short, the importance that we give to GRADES reflects the same misconception of progress that we see in the story, because the same question appears: Progress For Whom?