Category: Gatto”

Alternative success

Ask any college student about their time in school, and be met with shudders and groans of all the stressful memories of exams,projects, and books of essays from their ‘12 years of hell’. The work might have been stressful and exhausting, but at the end of the day, it’s the only real way to success, or so we’ve been lead to believe. Maybe all that stress and anxiety wasn’t necessary for you to succeed, and might have even had an opposite effect on some students. Personally, I’ve seen every way a student has succeed in this system of education, and the most prominent method I’ve experienced and witnessed is through unethical methods like cramming and cheating. For every hard working straight A students, there’s just as much or even more students sneaking cheat sheets into exams, and it may be due to how our public education system is set up.
Public schools are used as a means to grant children a fair and fulfilling head start in life, with a clear path to a career, and as tech grew smarter and more complicated, so did the curriculums needed for careers. Befor, classes were taught at home, basic literature and an understanding in mathematics was all that was needed. But with advancement in technology and innovation, the standard for basic education grew with the time. With such a fast growing system, the pressure to succeed grew as well. Students now are expected to learn at a far greater rate than those of a couple generations ago, and as we’re taught to put our best into our work, sometimes our best just isn’t enough to reach such high expectations.
So why exactly would a student even consider cheating as an option? Well it might be due to the way schools put more value on actually succeeding than learning. In John Taylor Gatto’s article “Against school”, he raises the argument that “schools are meant to tag the unfit – with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments”. School has become a competitive environment made to weed out students based on how fast they can grasp information. With long school hours and piles of work, students are expected to sacrifice their already limited free time outside of classes, to accomplish what all those long hours of classes should have done. I’ve sacrificed my own health, coming into school on no sleep, stomachs flu, migraines, and more, all because of the value school puts into ‘furthering your education’, where a single day of class is worth more than a week of pain and suffering. Students are also made to conform to a specific learning style that might not cater to their abilities. In math class, I’d have difficulty understanding a problem or method during class. So I took the time afterwards to break down the problem further than my teacher would, using my own knowledge and understanding to figure out how to better see the problem. However, regardless of my answer, if I didn’t use the ‘correct method’ to solve it, my answer was as good as wrong in the eyes of the school grading system.
So can students blame their failure on the teachers for not teaching them the right way? In most cases, no. Teachers are also victims to a flawed system. They’re also limited in time, expected to cater to classes of around 30 students, some covering multiple courses, which can average to almost 100 unique and individualized learning methods to prepare. They’re also graded based on the success of their students grades. Back in my old English class,usually a topic would be chosen for the class, based on assigned articles or novels. Then, the class period would be used to discuss this single topic in great details, while the teacher would include critical ideas and counter arguments, allowing allowing the class to not only explore concepts at a comfortable pace, but to use critical analysis in key arguments and topics without much help from the teacher. However, occasionally teachers were given unexpected visits from deans and members of the board of education to be evaluated on their performance. This changed the whole environment of the class, every talking point being driven by the teacher like a monotone orchestra, as if our thoughts on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was all the same. The class went from a vivid discussion on different views, to a simplified agree/disagree discorce.
Learning is a time consuming process, that requires unique methods of understanding to each person. Public schools have systematically made this process into a filtration system that, as Gatto stated, “…produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens, all in order to render the populace ‘manageable’ “. In my 12 years of school, learning and passing were two completely different concepts, and the time needed to learn was jammed with cramming and white noise knowledge. To pass was to put myself through unnecessary anxiety, leading to habits that still haunt me through my college years. To learn was to take what precious time outside of school there was to break down the vast information given into a fine and simple concept. With no change to the current system, an increase in school time, and an increase in the want for standardized testing, this method of learning will start to become an unreachable goal set aside for more competitive and uniform learning systems.

The mentor text that I chose to use for my first revision is called “A students struggle with depression, college is act as counselors.”. Written by Brad Wolverton of the New York Times. I selected this article for various reasons, first being it hits an incredibly sensitive but truthful topic for me, as well as I found that it was overall written very well. Wolverton’s organization throughout was relatively easy to follow along with, he wasn’t wordy and easily kept to a specific person or topic with ease. Wolverton’s straight to the point through the writing process represents a style that I would enjoy to imitate. This article was composed of college students and the stress they endure daily plus how universities are trying to adapt to the increasing need for help. Wolverton writes in a way that an audience of any age and area in life generated and still get something out of it. I believe that both Wolverton and Ghattos articles can help support my opinion that schools can do a youthful person’s mind more harm nowadays than good. Wolverton’s article discusses how schooling primarily college can affect an individual in many negative ways also how universities are trying to utilize counselors to support students and teach them to maintain their emotions. Wolverton introduces his article off with an example of a student who emailed his teacher stating that he needed a break because he was experiencing a mental breakdown, I feel using this first is a great draw into an article while offering you just a great idea of how it’s going to go. I genuinely would like my article to mimic some of these points and that leaves the reader why confused then they started. 

 

Darlene Flores                                    February 19, 2019

Professor Hall                                     Essay #1

 

Mandatory Schooling

 

Dear Mr. Yard,

 

You were my high school principal at ENYFA which im so proud to admit, but I wanted to tell you that the one-on-one times with you when you took upon the responsibility to help me understand trigonometry, were life changing. Besides a high school principal, you were also a friend, someone who anyone can confide in, and you had the best interest for your students at heart, and no matter what, yu always tried your best to see that through. You understood that school at times got to a point for all students, where they felt they had no option left but to give up on themselves. I for one, can say that as long as you were present, nothing of such, would ever happen before your eyes, and I say this because of your effort to heal your students of doubt. Being that you were also a personal tutor for me, you not only reminded me of why I used to have such enthusiasm for school, but also that the education system would be better if it became more flexible. Mandatory schooling is understandable, that should not be taken away, however, the amount of responsibility and hours put into schooling, is overwhelming, and should be set up differently for the sake of students’ mental, emotional, and physical, well being.

 

There are many factors that contribute to why students feel so stressed when it comes to their education. Rather than seeing education with optimism, as students should, majority often feel sickened by the thought of having to sit in a classroom(s) for an average of 7 hours, 5 days a week, and that excludes outside related forces such as tutoring, or extra help after school hours or even on weekends. A reading by John Taylor Gatto, Against Schools, is an essay about “How public education cripples our kids, and why” by mentioning that “ We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight – simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids to truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take risk every now and then”(1). With this being stated, the message being sent is that the best interest for students is, if the schooling system would loosen up its grip on the time and energy of its students because in the end, the students are who hurt from the outcomes. If the resulting circumstance happens to be just this, then the purpose of mandatory schooling in the first place, would have gone to waste and produced yet, another body, without the ambitions or drive to keep going in life. Have the phrase “Strict parents raise disobedient kids”? Similarly, with the current education system, this phrase can be seen take place in the very homes or school property with students, meaning that students are only carrying more and more responsibility won their shoulders than they should have because outside of their school life, they have yet, more responsibility to keep up with. For example, an adolescent student is expected to complete an average of 7 hours of schooling, have time for extracurricular activities, take the time to arrive home, complete their homework, eat, spend time with family, and deal with their personal and domestic responsibilities, EVERYDAY. School takes up too much time from students’ hands, not to forget the overwhelming stress that we deal with, too. This isn’t okay, because if the students are expected to flourish as the best version of themselves, the strict schooling hours are hindering that ability and it has to be dealt with before it completely and permanently damages the drive students’ have or can have for their own success. Not only time, but if the material and the manner used to teach children in classrooms changed, the role played out by the students, would drastically change.

 

As a principal, you would understand 100% that not all students learn the same usual way, where they’d sit in a classroom and stare at the board or even the teacher or their texts, trying to grasp the point of all the mumbo jumbo thrown at them, while also having to adjust to them. In this case, students shouldn’t have to adjust to anything, because when you adjust, you settle, and settling means that you’re deciding to deal with less quality than what you should be getting. Quality, in relation to academic material, can be considered the top, if not, one of the most important aspects of education provided for students. Students are losing in the end because they are settling for less when they are tested on the improper things in school buildings, such as their ability to race time and finish their assignment, rather than the quality of their work and the extent to which they understand what they have to learn. Gatto explains something called “the integrating function” and that is “…fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgement completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can’t test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things” (3). This function, is becoming a habit of schooling manners now and days because as mentioned above, school is becoming more concentrated on how fast a student can complete an assignment, with a given certain amount of time or if they can complete their work in the same manner that they are told to do so, whether that method is the best for them or not. Schooling is becoming more so about the cooperation and obedience of a student rather than the best a students can be at something, BUT at their own pace and actions because it should be about what is in THEIR best interest to become something more than the previous generation. Again, there are many factors that hurts a student when it comes their best ability academically, but working first from the inside and purifying the circumstances of these immediate issues first, would definitely give back better results compared to the current ones being produced.

 

Sincerely, your student for 7 years of our lives, Darlene Flores

 Is your  Education being Advertised ?

 

       The society we live in now today is a place were having the newests and latest products is a big thing. Always feeling like you need those thing in order to fit in. Whether it’s the newest clothes,footwear, technology ,etc. We see the advertisement for these thing and think to ourselves that we really do need them. Constantly being pressured with the message that you need the newest things to fit in. Even when having something that’s already new to you there’s always something newer being added to the shelves making us want it. And the same thing happens when it comes to educational things. Is this type of consumerism drilled into our head and culture that it affects you? Is this consumerism  apart of your education making society gullible and mindless?

         

         The two groups that can answer these questions are teachers and students. This is the truth when it comes to John Taylor Gatto’s article “Against School,” where he rates public schools intentions and there effectiveness of their education. In his article Gatto states, “ School didn’t have to train kids in any direct sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it did something even better: it encouraged them not to think at all.”(4) It’s not like that schools promote consumerism but however they don’t disencourage it. Leaving students defenseless from advertisement. Not teaching students to stop and think but teach them to consume nonstop. To sit there and think what could happen or what should happen instead of just trusting it. Making them consumers as the believe in what they are being told without the information to back it up.

          

        As a teacher in the New York City school system were he grows to believe that the school system makes children oppose to education and preparing them to be responsible adults. Gatto mentions in the article, “ First, though , we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands.”(5) Based on this statement, the public school system is the place were kid go to be brainwashed by the educational system. Drilling habits and attitudes that we would need in society. Schools are like science labs they study students and use students as experiments to see how the young minds will act by being drilled with information, habits and attitudes they think that will be used in society.

        

          When you turn Eighteen that’s the time when it  marks a point in your life when you are considered legally adults. By being legal they are able to make their own decisions and be held accountable for what they say and their actions. As a person who attended public school the idea of the education system drilling habits and attitudes that we would need in society is true. With these habits and attitudes being drilled into your head affects the decision making process because you think about how it’s going to affect your society and you. You think about all the things that you have learned and how you are going to us it in your life in society. Making you wonder if that what you been tough is going to help or hurt you. Being gullible is believing something without questioning the person or the information. If the goal for school’s is to feed information to students without giving further information. Making students foster the idea of gullible behavior. My experience at school were teachers would tell you something but you always think are they telling me the truth. Am i going to really needs this? Is this going to affect me later?Teachers always telling you don’t bring this don’t do that. That these things will help us when done with school. But the truth is all these thing somehow are apart of everyday life and part of society and how we live.

 

       In another article by Dr. Robert Leamnson “Learning (Your First Job)” were he describes the components of the learning process and the several methods on how to process. Theses several methods in and out of the classroom. Leamnson writes, “You cannot be ‘given’ learning, nor can you be forced to do it. The most brilliant and inspired teacher cannot ‘cause’ you to learn. ” (Leamnson 1) No teacher can force you to learn. Even best teachers can’t force you to learn.  It’s you as a person that has to force themselves to learn. This is if you really care about your education. No teacher should force you to learn even your favorite teach can’t force you to learn. You have to force yourself to want to learn and succeed.

 

Works Cited

Gatto, John T. “Against School.” Against School – John Taylor Gatto, wesjones.com/gatto1.htm.

Leamnson, Robert. “Learning (Your First Job).” MA, Dartmouth, Dec. 2002.

 

 

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.

Kristopher Baptiste

Carrie Hall

English 1101

21 February 2019

Bad to Worse

In today’s society we have people that criticize and judge other people without education and tend to treat then differently. What if you had a teacher that gave the students work but didn’t care how you did on it or if the content was right or wrong.

The school system in this new generation is corrupted we have teachers that are out here rubbing there ideals to gullible young consumers that don’t really much about the world as yet. Throughout my time in elementary school i realized my teacher was basically trying to make me think the same as her. There were times when I would waiting to get picked up from school the teacher would would sit next to me with a newspaper and literally tell me what exactly what I should think. For the rest of the week we didn’t do any type of work the teacher basically made us watch videos about whats going on with the world like with politics, the government and other things that we didn’t know about. The teacher would tell us her ideals and her opinion about the things happening and us young gullible kids agreed on the things she was saying even though we didn’t understand what she was talking about.

The other problems that are shown is that certain teachers don’t like there job or they don’t like work load they are mandatory to do. Some of the teachers don’t like dealing with students especially the ones that don’t listen to there instructions. There are teachers that are lazy they would just give the students work without even caring if they did well or not. They don’t like the fact they have to set up test, grade the test, create homework and also correct it, and the biggest one of all is giving up there free time especially there off days to come to work to help students graduate, obtain credits or give them an opportunity to pass the class and with that they would have to prepare work for them. This then has an impact on the students because they not getting the full help they really need or they just end up getting work without even getting it looked at.

In the article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto expresses his point of view which it shows how the American schooling system seems childish. According to the article “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto it says “My own experience had revealed to me what many other teachers learn along the way, too, yet keep to themselves for fear of reprisal”. Some teachers hate to be corrected even when there in the wrong. In my 10th grade year there was this US history teacher that hate to be wrong. One day in class a student had corrected her and she got upset then she called the assistant principal and reported him for talking back and cursing at her but me and my classmates reported her to the principal for lying but surprisingly she didn’t get fired. Afterwards the principals started to come into our US history class and observe the teacher.

John Gatto stated that the key problem in the schooling is boredom among the students which he then ask a question, “Do we really need schooling”? Gatto states that the current school system is not helping the students learn and grow as they should be. Some teachers are given students unnecessary information or not giving any help at all. Gatto implied that teachers should be giving students the proper guidance that will help students know what to decide to do with there future. Students should be able to establish goals for themselves and try to achieve there dreams. According to Gatto, he basically believes that the teachers in the corrupted school system are worried about themselves for example they only care getting paid they not worried about the students getting the proper education they need in order to go places in life.

In the 11th grade I had a advisory teacher that was suppose to be helping us decide what are we gonna do after we graduate and what decision we made about our future. The teacher would usually come in the class and put on a video she found on the internet but it had nothing to do with the things we should be talking about in the class. Afterwards she would hand everyone a sheet of paper and tell us that we have to write down important details from the video. The teacher would tell us to hold on to the work and that she will collect it the next day but she would never collect it so later on the students started to take advantage of the fact that the teacher doesn’t care what we do. Some of the students would be on their phones, sleep during class or even talk to there friends for the whole period.

Therefore in conclusion students need the proper guidance in order for them to take on the obstacles ahead of them in order to have a full filling life. Additionally I agree with Gatto argument because I believe that students need an education in order to make the proper decisions in life.

Saalik Jackson

Education is very necessary. However, the way that it is executed is not. Most students attend school 5 days a week for about 7 hours. During this time students learn things that are forced on them rather than something they chose. Students begin to feel forced in class. School is necessary but it is done excessively.
Forced schooling on young people is unnecessary. When people are forced to do something the experience for them is not enjoyable. The students tend to car less about learning and just concern themselves with getting a decent grade. This is the reason why students often don’t retain information taken in from school. Students will only learn it for the test and then forget all of the material. Students forget because of the fact that they do not care. The reason that they do not care is because they feel forced
Most students have to attend school 5 days a week for about 7 hours. Then in addition to those hours of school the students have to go home and do homework and study the material while balancing whatever they have to do outside of school. Some students struggle to get a sufficient amount of sleep because of this. Students tend to perform unsatisfactory due to lack of sleep. The repetitive cycle of school sometimes takes a toll on students. Some students have a longer commute than others. Because of the fact that some students live farther, they end up getting significantly less sleep than they would if they lived closer. Some students get home late and stay up at night doing homework or studying and then wake up early the next morning.
Students have to learn things that are forced on them rather than something that they chose. Students at times learn things that they feel may not pertain to them. Some of these students begin to feel like these things that they learn have no value outside of a classroom. Student then realize that the material is forced on them and that they have to accept it. The fact that students feel forced makes the experience dreadful to them. Imagine sitting in a class that you despise and are forced to take it because someone else thinks is beneficial to you and your life.
When feeling forced, students do not care about learning. Because they are forced to do the material, they just do it to get it over with. Now there is a room full of students who do not care about learning but just want to pass. That’s the reason why students never retain the information taught because they never cared to actually learn it. Students just do the work so that they can pass and nothing more. They begin to care more about the grade they receive than anything they possibly may have learned. Grades in school are often thought of as a representation of how intelligent a student is. They are often compared in class and at home. Students attempt to get those grades that they desire by any means necessary. If a student has to cheat or plagiarize for that grade, then it is very likely that he or she might do just that.
Students feel forced because they just are not interested all the time.”Boredom is the common condition of school teachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers’ lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there”said John Taylor Gatto in his article titles Against School. How can the students possibly be interested in the class if the teacher isn’t? Sometimes there are teachers who just refuse to make their classes appealing to the students. Some teachers will just teach without ever thinking about how to reach their audiences. Things would be different if most teachers actually did take into consideration what the students are interested in. If teachers did that then students probably would not fall asleep in class. Students would also be more engaged and more likely to retain information that they learned in class.
Attendance in school also can be an inconvenience to some students. At times there can be issues going on at home but students still feel the need to attend their school. The students know that If they do not attend school they may miss something that is important. School takes up a lot of the extra time that some might need for other things. Some students have other responsibilities that they need to take care of. These are things such as taking care of other people in their household. For example, some students may have to take care of children, watch them, and or pick them up from the school they attend. A relatable example of this is that sometimes I as a student am late to class because I can not leave my siblings in the house alone until someone comes to watch them. Students have other things in their lives that they can not control that can effect their education.
It is common knowledge that education is very necessary. There are things that people need to learn. However, the way that students are taught is not always necessary.

Hadeel Abuhamda

February 18, 2019

English 1101

 

Fuck School; It’s Time for a Change

What if your little brother or sister comes home from school one day and tells you that he/she doesn’t want to go to school anymore because they aren’t learning anything. The teachers in their school doesn’t teach. In John Gatto’s article “Against School” he argues that the American public-school system conditions children to be gullible, mindless consumers. Looking back at my four years in high school I realize I agree with him. I went to Canarsie high school and it came with the shittiest teachers. When I was in high school I was thrown a textbook by my Global Studies teacher, Mr. Severin. He would always say…”read page 554″ then go in his little corner, kick his feet up and go to sleep. Teachers like this that’s in our educational system honestly and truthfully need to go. In my experience teachers care more about how students were behaving than what they are learning.

When I first read “Against School” I was surprised to find the truth in Gatto’s statements regarding education in school. We are repeatedly told information and expected to memorize which formula or equation to use. We then proceed to have tests and quizzes repeating the same formulas using different numbers. The end result is a chain that gives us A’s and B’s, but at what cost? We are receiving letter grades that are meaningless in life. Life is about understanding and developing thought based on reasoning. It does not revolve around receiving a formula and getting a meaningless number.

Although the K-12 education system in the United States is filled with issues, like boring content, careless educators and a curriculum with useless information, it is a necessary part of our society. Gatto says, “…their teachers were every bit as bored as they (the students) were.” (1) While I’ve definitely been in many classes where the only thing I care about is how fast the seconds tick away from the class being over. I believe that our education system is necessary to give children an education to hopefully improve their lives and their future. Gatto gives the examples of Carnegie, Twain and Farragut among others as successful people who did NOT receive a high school education. Similar examples could be pulled from today’s society just like Bill Gates and Steve jobs who both did not complete college. The problem now is that when we go to college, we are exposed to the small percentage of people who were able to figure out the meaning of education in life, or in my case, to the percentage of people who had the most terrible education and felt stuck.

In college, we have to read the material, and actually understand what the professor is hinting at, not like in high school where you can just be cool with the teacher, not do any work and they will pass you. I actually have experienced that before; you just had to be friends/cool with the teacher and they pass you. In high school, my US history teacher didn’t really teach good because of the simple fact that he didn’t like what the educational system makes the teachers teach and how they teach it. He said, “the way they want us to teach and how they want us to teach it is wrong, so therefore I will not be teaching like that.” So, he taught his students what he thought was “right” even though the tests we had to take was nothing like what he taught. Passing your classes in my high school consisted of a good friendship with your teacher and thats how I passed all my classes. Gatto states, “…teachers didn’t know much about their subjects and clearly weren’t interested in learning more.” (1) My US history teacher was a living example of this quote.

In conclusion, the educational system is not perfect and, in my opinion, it will never be close to perfect. Although, I believe that our education system is necessary to give children an education to hopefully improve their lives and their future. In the article “Against School” Gatto argues that the American public-school system conditions children to be gullible, mindless consumers and I agree.

 

work cited

“Against School” by John Taylor Gatto

The primary goals set on public schools is to grant children a fair and fulfilling head start in life, with a clear path to a career. At least that’s the initial goal, but as innovation grew, the need for workers and consumers came with, so schools became the perfect environment to nurture such gullible and manipulable groups. Having been through the whole spectrum of education, from the problem students to the honor classes, the path set by schools is not as advertised, and a proper education through these methods takes unique and almost disparaging techniques.

Education is suppose to be a slow and personal growth experience, and teachers are meant to make sure each and every student grows in their own ways. However, the current school environment is such a competitive field, with long hours of throwing information into students without proper care on whether it stuck, and so little time to retain this information. Students are expected to sacrifice their already limited time outside of classes, to accomplish what hours of classes should have done. In John Taylor Gatto’s article “Against school”, he raises the argument that “schools are meant to tag the unfit – with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments”. Those lucky enough to grasp concept fast enough were allowed to pass, while the rest were ostracized, labeled as a grade and nothing more. The need to pass over learning took over most, as most took to questionable methods of passing, from last second memorizing, to in most cases I’ve seen, some form of cheating.

For a student to fully understand new ideas, according to Robert leamnson’s article “Learning”, the key to true education comes from a balance of both understanding and memorization. However, schools set a much different requirement for all teachers, grading classes based on test scores instead of overall understanding. This practice may make it easy to grade several papers, but all it shows is a student’s abilities to memorize information then proceed to regurgitate it all onto standardized tests. In high school, teachers were occasionally observed during class times, to give overall grades based on teaching methods and average class grades. The teachers of course knew when these visits would occur and would set up before hand. On one of those days, an English teacher of mine was chosen, the ‘approved’ method he prepared for that day was such a drastic change from his usual classes. Usually, a topic was chosen for the class, normally from assigned article or novel for the class, then the class period would be used to discus this single topic in details, while the teacher would push for critical ideas and counter arguments, allowing the class to not only explore concepts at their own pace, but to use critical thinking in key arguments and proposals. This class period however, was completely driven by the teacher, the topic was chosen by the teacher as usual, but instead of breaking off into talking points, we were almost orchestrated by the teacher, thought by thought, as if our thoughts on one flew over the cuckoo’s nest was all in the same. The class went from a vivid discussion on different views, to simple agree/disagree discourse.

Gatto states that one of the actual basic functions of schools is to create conformity, “because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to harness and manipulate a large labor force”. If you don’t solve a problem the way you were taught, regardless if you achieved the answer through your way, then you fail. This was a concept rooted into our brain, and although it seems necessary at younger ages to fully grasp simple concepts, it becomes redundant further on where free thinking and individual growth and understanding should prosper. When a math problem was taught in a way that wasn’t clear or too complicated to understand,  I would take time to figure out patterns in the problem, see how the outcome is created, and use the understanding plus my own thought process to make an easier and clear way to solve a problem. However, in most cases, the problems are made with predetermined methods of solution, where knowing the answer is only half the problem, memorizing the steps to take it is the main goal. This method of teaching leads to an inefficient method of learning, instead of a custom and critical method of education, students are taught to think uniformly, cutting out free thought, while those attempting to think critically were told their methods were inefficient.

Learning is a time consuming process, that requires unique methods of understanding to each person. Public schools have systematically made this process into a filtration system that, as Gatto stated, “…produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens, all in order to render the populace ‘manageable’ “. In my 12 years of school, learning and passing were two completely different concepts, and the time needed to learn was jammed with cramming and white noise knowledge. To pass was to put myself through unnecessary anxiety, leading to habits that still haunt me through my college years. To learn was to take what precious time outside of school there was to break down the vast information given into a fine and simple concept. With no change to the current system, an increase in school time, and an increase in the want for standardized testing, this method of learning will start to become an unreachable goal set aside for more competitive and uniform learning systems.

Education At Its Lowest

       The public school education system in the United States conditions students to be gullible, and produces mindless consumers. Many students these days go to school just to waste time, and at the end of the day, they don’t learn anything. As John Taylor Gatto the author of the article called Against School also states that public education cripples our students. The K-12 schooling in the united states is nonsense and need to be changed. Therefore, public school education system in our country shapes our students to be credulous.

During my K-12 schooling years I experienced that the way school systems are constructed, it’s more about passing the exams than learning in school. In addition, most cases the classes are boring and we sit in class for hours just to wait for the bell to ring and leave. For example, during my middle school, each of my classes I attended we didn’t learn anything during the class sessions, instead we just played around with my classmates, and the teacher gave up in teaching us. In the article Against School, Gatto states that “One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. (1)” The author also says when he was in school he was bored just as most kids during school. This also shows why most kids during school don’t want to learn and instead don’t listen to the teacher and do whatever they want in class because they are bored or not interested in class.

The modern schooling needs to be modified, because in my experience I became aware of that most of us when we go to school we sit there for hours and hours and we have to do whatever the teachers wants us to believe, moreover because it is mandatory. The school system makes some of us the opposite to learn because of how the school system is constructed. If schools would be fun and entertaining more kids would want to learn and enjoy school. In our society passing exams and tests became the priority instead of learning and knowledge.”We have, for example, the great H.L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence…”(2) Thus, Gatto states that the education system doesn’t fill our young generations with knowledge as an alternative, they give us pressure with passing common core, regents, or other exams.

A lot of students drop out of school because they are failing too many classes and they didn’t learn anything useful, therefore that results in students to failing exams. Our young generation at public schools believe whatever the teachers are telling them without the broad knowledge and truth behind the words. In the Gatto article it says “First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. (5)” John Taylor Gatto trying to tell us in his article that schools does not make us learn or make us more knowledgeable, but instead we are like laboratory experiments, whatever we do it is to make us gullible, and mindless consumers.

The reason why our education is at its lowest because our society doesn’t have a broad knowledge of the world. For example, in the article it says, “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”(4) In our society our students don’t have a broad knowledge that prepares them to deal with complexity , diversity, and change. If we would have liberal education it would make the students more knowledgeable to prepare them for the society.

At Last, the modern K-12 education system is useless and trash because the education system does not make the students into real independent individuals. Many of the students waste time at school for the whole day just to be bored in class and uninterested. The school system makes exams more of a priority than knowledge itself. Most students drop out because of the consequences of going to school just to fool around there. The education that supposed to teach us something in school does not exist because the system is made in a way to make us as feel like we are servants to the school and whatever they tell us we have to obey. The way the system is constructed is not to make us critical thinkers but exam passers. Therefore, the public school education system in the Unites States conditions students to be gullible, and produces mindless consumers.

 

 

Works Cited;

John Taylor Gatto** Against School*

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