Dear Betsy DeVos, I am reaching out to you about your thoughts regarding education and schooling. “Do we really need school? I don’t mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years?”
There is a controversy when it comes to schooling and from the article “Against Scholl”, John Taylor Gatto explains in details how public education cripple our kids and why. According to him as someone who taught for thirty years, schooling is not what many people think. His first concern was boredom, not only for the kids but also for the teacher. Boredom according to the kids is that activities done during class do not make sense or they already knew it. Students’ whining and dispirited behaviors also make the teachers feel bored. This is already a sad position that school in general put both teachers and students.
Gato also stated that he often bent the law to help kids break out of this trap. I also remember that one of my teachers used to prepare many activities and have students choose one. Kids need education for sure, but is schooling just necessary? Many people who did not go through that deadly routine. From those people we can cite American presidents George Washington , Benjamin Franklyn, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. None of these cited people graduated from secondary school. Furthermore, people like Farragut (admiral), Edison (inventor), Carnegie and Rockefeller (captains of industry), Melville and Twain (writers), have not either been through the stressful school program. So the whole point we have been taught is that school is the most related to success which is not the truth since there are many successful people that have not graduated from school.
In addition, the “Principles of secondary education” from Inglis’ 1918 book clearly breaks down the true purposes of modern schooling. Firstly, the adjustive or adaptive function, which teaches rules and habits. The main purpose of that being to establish a mentality that make kids more likely to just obey even when they don’t like it. Secondly, the integrating function or conformity function, which purpose, is to make children alike because that way they will be more predictable and more manageable in case they plan to mobilize a large labor force. Thirdly, the diagnostic and directive function, which determines the kid’s skills (“proper social role”) by saving his background. Fourthly, the differentiating function that comes after the diagnostic function. On this step, kids are “sorted” depending on what they have been taught and their role. On fifth position, we have the selective function, the most frightening in my opinion is what Gatto states: “Schools are meant to tag the unfit – with poor grades, remedial placement and other punishments – clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes.” In sixth position, the propaedeutic function which is a sort of preliminary to further studies. In fact, kids will later then, “be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor”.
From what I have learned so far from Gatto and my personal experiences, I think that school is different from what Gatto and many people may think. It at first glance looks like a necessity, a place to inquire knowledge and discipline in order to get ready to face future obstacles. But in reality, that’s just a portion of what schooling means. That program is intensive, boring and basically takes forever. Most important, after all suffering for years, one can still end up being what he did not what to be, that is to just “I went to school does not mean I will succeed”. But let’s also consider that if someone graduates from school, he is very more likely to get a better job generally when compared to someone you did not graduate. Since there are plenty of successful people who did not graduate from school, we can’t just assume that school is an unbeatable ticket to success.
However, despite being difficult, stressful and boring sometimes, school also prepare children to face reality in the future. School does not only teach children modern knowledge, but also teaches them critical thinking. In addition, the rules (coming on time, respecting people, etc.) contribute in helping students in the future. It does not really matter if you are a successful person or not, you need to know how to read and write at least, or you will depend on those who know. I’m personally happy going to school despites all it implies and I’m willing to do all necessary in order to reach my goal. I also encourage education leaders to keep up in helping students by providing more opportunities.
