Britney Lilly
Dr. Hall
1101
02.19.02
Is it possible for a more hands-on and relaxed approach to education work within our schooling system? An educational system in this time and age that is less stress-inducing and focuses more on the enjoyment of passing down knowledge could probably work. Students would remember topics through the play like infants and toddlers, instead of just reading the text, which could help open up new doors for students to getting better grades and enjoying the idea of being in school.
While reading the article “Against school” by John Taylor Gatto, I stumbled upon the conclusion that the American schooling system contains numerous flaws when it comes to building up a student’s learning self-esteem. The educational systems create a kind of reliant atmosphere and also categorizing students, which ultimately causes them to segregate amongst themselves based on their place on the social ladder or by a grade point average. When I was younger, the public-school system influenced children to believe that they were not brilliant enough and were incapable of substantial prosperity. Hearing teachers say to children as young as nine told that if they did not buckle down and focus now, they would go on to work in dead end jobs, failures to themselves and their families.
During my high school years (from 2006-2009), I attended Robert Louis Stevenson, a private school on the upper West side of Manhattans. I went from being a no grade student into getting A’s and B’s. All of my teacher’s support help to motivate me to believe in myself and that my wants, needs, and desires were valid. It was one of the best decisions that I have ever made for myself considering that usually education and I do not mix well. The high school building itself was originally an old apartment that was turned into a learning facility for kids that had learning disabilities, behavioral issues or in general just no will of living.
Though Robert Louis Stevenson was unique, it followed the same deadly routine just as any self-respecting high school, “six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years.” (Gatto 2). Get up, go to school, go home, do work from school at home so that you can’t do anything else, sleep then repeat. It was a process that I always believed to be unneeded. Coming home with all this homework gave yourself little time to enjoy anything by constantly sticking your nose into a book trying in vain to understand and not fall behind in a subject just makes you not want to succeed at all. To say the least, Robert Louis Stevenson took the tediousness of learning and turned it into something more enjoyable.
Teachers were constantly trying to find ways to make studying more interesting. They would take the students outside to learn amongst nature most of the time or select hands-on learning lessons to break the monotony of the day. For instance, one day I was walking into my zoology class and saw my teacher Kadee holding two cartons of eggs. As each student walked in she handed one to each student. Kadee proceeded by asking us if we all believed the eggs would shatter causing your pussy drip or if they would bounce. Everyone in the class agreed that they were all going to shatter. After tallying up our guesses she told us all to throw the eggs at the floor, every egg shattered except for the two in her hands. She smashed them onto her head causing yolk to drip down her face. It was part of the lesson that I would never forget. I found out that it helped me with my understanding because I went from going to a public school where nobody cared about how you did in class, to a school of at most 100, that had smaller classes and teachers who always knew more than one way to help you understand a subject.
“Students want to be motivated encouraged to have the qualities to succeed in life they don’t want to feel like they are being forced to learn material that society thinks they have to.”(Gatto 5). Being able to identify the difference between public schools and private schools was an eye-opener because students were not spoken down to or neglected and were treated and looked upon as equal. Teachers established a form of trust between the students and made them realize or feel that the lessons taught by them were genuinely for the student’s benefit in their future lives. School is not supposed to be some boring monotonous thing. Learning is supposed to be fun and I think that Gatto was trying to state that because the more fun you are having the more interested you are and the greater chance you have at succeeding.
Works cited Gatto, John. “Against Schools.” Against School – John Taylor Gatto, 2003, www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm
