Unit One: Final Draft

What if we were Given an education not schooling?

We are trapped in a society that if we have no education people look down upon us and treat us unfairly. What if sport cars, fancy jewelry, and clothing was a way to make society work hard in school in order to be successful?

Through my experience, Elementary school and Middle school was a easier time but when high school started it was a whole different ball game it was equal behavior between students and teachers but as the days, months, and years progressed things started to change. I went to Richmond Hill High School in Queens which had many mixed reviews, more bad rather than good. My experience there wasn’t actually bad like they were perceived to be. But there is always that one teacher that gave up and doesn’t care about teaching anymore and takes it out on the students. Many teachers don’t enjoy their jobs because students are focused on passing the class and not really caring about learning but you can’t blame us we are afraid to fail in this society so we have to turn to cheating to succeed. It seems that Richmond Hill High School was perceived to be a horribly bad school and that all the students that went or go there is mischievous and looking for trouble rather than knowing who we really are. Many teachers get the wrong perception of students of how they look and dress because it tells them more than they really know. Students usually get treated and judged upon by who they surround themselves with  rather than knowing them.

In his article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto point of view shows how the American schooling system seems childish. John Taylor Gatto thinks he can bring out the best qualities in students by giving them a reason to make decisions and take risks from time to time rather than teaching them the basic information they already know. According to John Gatto, the key problem of schooling is boredom which raises a question, “Do we really need schooling?” Gatto informs the readers that students would be interested in learning if they were given an “education” and not“schooling”. The American schooling system seems more like a daily routine which doesn’t help kids develop and grow, to some they feel forced to go to school rather than following their true dreams. John Gatto believes the American schooling system is made for profits for the economy. The main reason schooling was made was to train everyone to be the same. The schooling system manipulates us by determining our social roles. Kids are being fed with necessary and unnecessary information and they are not thinking on their own.

          John Taylor  Gatto makes a distinction between “education” and “schooling.” The difference is that “schooling”is something that kids have to do for twelve years, and five days a week for nine months and “education” is only if a kid really wants to (2). Is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would “leave no child behind” (2), students want to be motivated to be encouraged to have the qualities to succeed in life they don’t want to feel like they were forced to learn material that society thinks they have to. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women (5), which shows the solution that we should be able to manage our life ourselves rather than depending on anyone. We could encourage the best qualities of the youthfulness- curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight by being more flexible about time, texts, and testing (1), these methods would be more meaningful for a students learning life span that would help them grow, develop, and succeed.

       On the other hand, Robert Leamnson article “Your First Job” informs his audience on the difference between the two components of learning and understanding. “So it is that we can understand something quite clearly, and some time later not be able to remember what it was we understood” (3) which shows we didn’t keep the information we learned because we feel like we don’t need it in everyday life. For example, if you watch a movie or show and time passes, you would remember what you watched because it had a real life scenario that affected you or it had a meaningful experience. “The reason something must be said about so commonplace a thing as the classroom is that too many students see it incorrectly and so they waste a highly valuable occasion for learning” (3), many students see the classroom like a jail cell that has you locked away from society with no place to move or be free. In other words there’s no space for a student to spread his wings and fly independently and show their true worth.

          They need experiences to keep succeeding in life, and the only way to gain this knowledge is to learn about life, to see and experience how to manage them in life. In conclusion I agree with Gatto’s and Leamnson’s argument because I believe that most students can relate to their points about education in their articles “Against Schools” and “Learning”.  

Citations:

Gatto, John. “Against Schools.” Against School – John Taylor Gatto, 2003, www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm.

Leamnson, Robert. Learning . 2002, www1.udel.edu/CIS/106/iaydin/07F/misc/firstJob.pdf.