Category: Gatto”

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 educators. When I was in high school I was literally 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 thats in our educational system honestly and truthfully need to go.

Although the K-12 education system in the United States is troubled with issues, like boring content and a curriculum with useless information, it is a necessary part of our society. 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, as boring as it may be, 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. Unlike during Carnegie, Twain and Farragut’s time, we live in a more complex world that requires greater knowledge to succeed. Nowadays it is no longer possible to be successful like Edison by just inviting a light bulb.

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. When we go to college we have to figure out the true meaning of education that Gatto is trying to tell us. In English, we have to read the material, and actually understand what the author 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. No matter the material we are learning, there is a certain point of understanding that is needed in order to fully take in the work we are doing. We are working towards future careers. We are working towards being successful in life. It’s a big issue to force students to study specific things, which don’t help them improve.

Gatto argues that the purpose of education in public schools is to produce “harmless electorate,” “a servile labor force,” and “mindless consumers.” According to Gatto, he is blaming public schools by explain that the purpose of education is to shape students to certain expectations and habits without their interests. He argues that students “want to be doing something real”. Also, He explains that they produce a manageable working class and “mindless consumers”. His point is that students want to learn something new that help them in their life, better than actual books from school which don’t apply their interests and their experience.

 

Most of us probably grew up knowing the struggles of waking up early in the morning to go through our same routines day by day for 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, 10 months a year, for 12 years. This system is known as K-12 or compulsory education/school. In his article “Against School,” John Taylor Gatto argues that the American schooling system is designed to have people grow into mindless, unindependent, and submissive consumers, which to an extent I agree.  He first begins talking about boredom and how students when asked are always claiming that they are “bored”. Somewhere further in the article, his claim on people becoming mindless, submissive consumers can be found stated in the article. Whether this is true or not can be found to be debatable.

In his article he begins with the topic of boredom which is something that I can vouch for when talking about the school system considering all the times that I found myself impulsive and distracted frequently. Gatto being a teacher of 34 years has always occasionally asked his students on why they were “bored” where they replied, “They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around.” In other words, the students willing to put up with the pointless work that they do but still make it clear that they are most aware to the fact that they could be doing something that would make them feel productive. Being that I am one who has partaken and had experience in the k-12 system, like the students I can agree with my disdain for spending so much time learning things that I know will not help prepare me for the future.

Advancing further in the text leads you to where Gatto starts elaborating on the idea that the school system have similar pre-designed experiences for every enrolled student, in which the outcome of their journey will have them be mindless, unindependent consumers. My experience however isn’t all as Gatto makes it out to be where in his article he makes the claim that, “We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgements and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishment that would insult actual adults.” What this essentially means is that Gatto believes that we are a nation grown on children who are willing to leave out the credibility on everything that deems questionable and are also willing to submissively take on political orders upon receiving them. I can not agree with this completely being that I am one who has seen a considerable amount of skepticism on the internet that poke holes in the credibility in nearly everything, and moreover that I can not simply come to agree that I have shared an experience such as the one depicted by Gatto.

In conclusion, most of the ideas that are brought up, along with the claims that Gatto makes are heavily supported in his article with different forms of evidence and texts, however the idea of making claims based on the outcomes of what people’s experience are to be is completely different being that it can go one of two ways. It can either support his claims or hurt them, due to the fact that one is most likely not going to agree with the idea that they are unindependent, mindless and submissive. Overall, perspective plays a huge role in the credibility of claims made like that of Gatto, due to the topic actually being based on the experiences of people which can yes, be similar but are overall going to differ from person to person.

The ideas and principles of schooling have been around almost as long as civilized humans have been walking the earth. The majority of people would most likely tell you that schooling-education in general is a must if you are looking to live and lead a “normal” productive life. In the article, “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto, he deviates from this way of thinking, and argues that school is ultimately a waste of time. Gatto even goes as far to say that school turns children into “gullible, mindless consumers.” I do not agree with this idea for several reasons. Let me explain why.

The first reason why I don’t think that school conditions students and children to be “mindless, gullible consumers”, is the fact that just about everyone who has made it out of high school knows how much hard work, and dedication it takes to get through it all-with passing grades at that. In the second paragraph, on the very first page, Gatto makes a claim about how the school system has affected not only the quality of life for students, but teachers as well. “Teacher are themselves products…trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed on the children.”(1) A lot of students could probably tell you how true this quote may seem. But, what many fail to realize is that teachers are thee for a reason-they enjoy teaching! It is true that not all teachers are built the same. Of course there are teachers who could care less what, or who, or how they’re teaching. But, for Gatto to make such a broad assumption that all teachers are “bored” and “trapped” would be insulting to a large majority of teachers, who take pride in knowing that what they are teaching can change peoples lives. In my senior year of high school, my AP English teacher was a prime example of that. We studied the work of Shakespeare, as well as classic books, such as “The Great Gatsby”, and “Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. We learned about structuring essays, and the different types of essays that could be written. She showed us countless methods and ways to strengthen our reading, writing, and comprehension skills. My AP English teacher was a living example of one reason why John Gatto’s claim about the school system is false.

Another reason why I disagree with Gatto’s claim about public education “crippling” children is that the school system is not at total fault. For every “bored” or “trapped” teacher, there are countless more students that feel the exact same way. In the article, “Learning (Your First Job)” by Robert Leamnson, he makes a very important point about learning. “…Learning is not something that just happens…You cannot be ‘given’ learning, nor can you be forced to do it.”(1) This quote may just be the most obvious quote in existence, but it is also the most overlooked. The reason the public school system does not work for everyone, is that not everyone has the want, or will to succeed. Therefore, not everyone will succeed. CUNY is a public school system, for graduates of high school. I find the biggest difference in “types” of people is noticed when you go to college, from high school. In high school, a lot of people are there because they legally need to, its mandatory. This reflects in their attitudes, and obviously their grades. In college, however, there is a substantial increase in the number of students who actually want to learn. They are there to benefit themselves. That desire, is the driving factor that pushes most to their limits, and to ultimately accomplish their goals.

The last reason why I disagree with Gatto about the public education system is the fact that Gatto’s word should not be taken at face value. We have already seen the broad generalizations made by Gatto about teachers, how products of the public education system are “gullible, mindless consumers”. Gatto makes yet another generalizing statement regarding school, and its overall purpose. “…School is meant to determine each students proper social role…As in ‘your permanent record'”.(4) Now here is where we really get to see the immense claims Gatto is making. Gatto seems to have created a conspiracy theory, conspiring against the public education system. Though a “gutsy” move, once you realize that what Gatto is essentially saying is that schooling determines where you will be in life, socially. Not the individual. He also is saying that your permanent record somehow has a huge help in this decision, I think most would agree that that is not a very sound statement to make.

In conclusion, Gatto’s various outlandish claims about school turning kids into zombies, are in fact unjustly found. It involves conspiracies, and statements made to seem like facts, based on a total bias. A  bias that goes against the public education system of today, and everything that it stands for. Like I mentioned in the introduction, schooling and its principles have been around for a very long time. It has produced some of the greatest, and influential minds ever to have lived. If the school system was as detrimentally corrupt and broken as Gattos claims it to be, then we literally would all be zombies. School, like life, is whatever you make it out to be.

In the article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto argues that the American public school system conditions children to be gullible, mindless consumers. This was not my personal experience with school from kindergarten through high school. While attending school I did not see the school system doing anything to make the students gullible or waving the next hot product in our faces in order to turn us into mindless consumers. Instead, students brought items into school that they saw influencers such as artists and entertainers advertise while out of school. Gatto argues that the school system turns  students into “addicts” and “children”. I believe that the American school system is not as bad or corrupt as Gatto claims based on personal experience.

In the article Gatto states that “School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children” (5). I believe that the school system has not created immature human beings, but instead has matured many students through teaching them about the importance of responsibility. While in school I learned that I was responsible for my own tasks and assignments. Not being responsible for my school work would lead to my failure so in order to succeed I had to take care of my own work. This taught me not only responsibility, but independence as well. Independence, which is doing things for yourself, would lead to students maturing and not having to depend on anyone. The school system has helped me by teaching me how to be responsible and independent.

Gatto does not agree that the school system teaches responsibility, independence and maturity. He even states that “Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up” (5). Although children are put together in school, they still have to be independently responsible for tasks inside and outside of the classroom. Kids being put together leads to learning teamwork, leadership and communication. It prepares them to connect and work with others outside of a school environment. This practice of communication defeats fear rather than producing it by getting rid of problems such as social anxiety. School doesn’t make students greedy. It fuels their hunger for success by showing them that with responsibility and hard work you will be rewarded with success.

Without someone going through the school system, what they learn may vary. They may not learn to be mature at all due to the lack of responsibility without school at young ages. There is the rare case however, when people are very successful without an education or any guidance. I believe that this is not guaranteed at all. Gatto believes that it is very likely and says “Even if they hadn’t, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve- year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turn out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln?” (2). Not everyone is cut out to be or can be president, but some can be successful without a school education. School is less of a risk than wandering without guidance. Also, many of the people who make it big without school presently are the ones who endorse products and turn children into mindless consumers whether or not they go to school.

I believe that school isn’t the mindless consumer factory that Gatto thinks it is. School isn’t as bad as he describes. Through personal experience the school system has helped me more than hurt me. It has guided me as far as I am now. I have successfully completed the K-12 American school system and have knowledge and experience to take with me past it. School does teach responsibility and independence through hard work which leads to maturity.

 

In the article “Against School,” John Taylor Gatto argues that the American public school system conditions children to be gullible, mindless consumers. In other words, he believed that due to the system students with the possibility of excelling were not nurtured properly to reach their full potential. In comparison to what Gatto describes, the teachers in my school were the opposite and motivated us that we were able to do great things if we set our mind to it.

Like any typical schools, I too experienced the deadly routine, “six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years.”(Gatto 2) I agree that at first I never understood why I had to go through this system, it seemed like I had to go to school just to fit in with the other Indonesian students. According to Gatto, “we have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of “success” as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, “schooling.”(2) I strongly agree that being schooled does not guarantee any form of success towards students. On the other hand, this does not serve as an excuse to throw away your chance of getting the education you deserve.

As my school adopted Singapore’s education system, we also followed the Cambridge examinations curriculum. In this system, we were taught solely based on textbooks and worksheets, although, I do not entirely agree with this method of teaching as it creates a closed discussion on other possible answers and theories. Nevertheless, the school was still known to excel students in academics and human skills. We were taught advanced mathematics, chemistry, biology, and physics during the eighth grade. Later on, during the ninth grade, we were split into two majors: business and science.

The reason why our school had to split the students into two majors was to give them the opportunity to focus on which majors they felt could be advantageous for their future major in college. Regardless, both majors had exams almost every three weeks and would usually be six to seven pages thick. None of our teachers made it easy. They made sure we experienced “deep learning, the kind that demands both understanding and remembering of relationships, causes, effects and implications for new or different situations.”(Leamnson 4) Thus, our exams contained only essays and short answers.

As stressful as this sounds, and I have even shed some tears due to the stress, I cannot deny that my school was what helped me survive my current challenge which is college. Not only did they help students excel in academics, but they also promoted fund-raising events to help the less fortunate. We would visit orphanages and hold talent shows where the students themselves would put on small shows like singing or acting. We would also come to school earlier to make packaged meals for the kids and staff. It was also the school’s idea to chip in a few extra changes from our pocket money to donate for families living in the villages that needed assistance for giving their children the education they deserved.

I was lucky enough to encounter teachers that were willing to spend their time to tutor me without a fee and recommended me to programs and competitions that might be beneficial for my personal experience. Gatto states that “your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.”(5) Although I did not receive this from a public school and indeed private schools are not on the affordable side, I am living proof that going through the “deadly routine” benefited me, in a way, in the long run. I matured sooner than most people my age, learned to appreciate more for what I have than what I do not and apply what I learned in high school into college and the real world.

Granted that I was only able to tell my side of the story from my experience at a private high school outside the United States, I am not able to justify if what Gatto describes the American public school system as “laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands.”(5) to be true. According to Leamnson, “learning is not something that just happens to you, it is something that you do to yourself.”(1) This rings true to me as I encountered multiple students from my school blaming the teachers for giving too many tests and homework when they did not put in the time and effort to get the work done. Overall, it depends on the students if they are willing to learn and use their education as an investment for their future.

In the article,”Against School” by John Taylor Gatto, he argues that the American public school system conditions children to be gullible, mindless consumers. After my experience with K-12 schooling, I agree with him. I especially noticed this during my four years of high school. Maybe it was the high school that I attended in particular, but it made me realize how flawed our educational system is.

One of the biggest problems with public schools today is that academic performance is declining, particularly in urban areas and among disadvantaged populations. My high school is an example of this. My school actually had three other schools in the same building and the one I was attending just so happened to be the worse one. Why? I believe there are so many factors that contributed to this school underachieving. One of those factors was actually mentioned in this article; boredom.

As Gatto himself put it,”boredom and childishness were the natural affairs in the classroom.”(1) Boredom comes as a lack of engagement and causes students to become inattentive. How can you learn something new if you aren’t engaged in the process? Then the problem is that many times teachers can’t see past the behaviors that indicate boredom. Instead of examining the environment and the activities, they begin to assign negatives to the students. This only causes more stress and doesn’t eliminate the problem at all. This leads to cheating and skipping class which were both very popular in my school. We are conditioned to believe that boredom in a classroom is normal. But is it really? Well, what can be done to change that? The answer is in this article. “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 a risk every now and then.”(1)

Another factor has to be the teachers that we had in that school. We had teachers who simply didn’t care, lacked knowledge in what’s supposed to be their area of “expertise”, or just simply couldn’t conduct a class. This was one of the major problems in this school. Especially when you had teachers sleeping in class, playing inappropriate videos in class, using derogatory words towards students, etc. With this happening, why would students behave if the adults couldn’t either?  

Gatto points out numerous times that there is a difference between “education” and “schooling.” “Schooling” is something that is mandatory and requires a deadly routine of six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. “Education” has more room for autonomy. Gatto raises the question of  “Why, then, do Americans confuse education with just such a system?”(2) The American school system that in Gatto’s opinion, conditions kids to be mediocre intellects, to have no leadership skills, to obey reflexively. Where I don’t completely agree with Gatto is where he states, “We have been taught in this country to think of ‘success’ as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon ‘schooling’ but historically that isn’t true in either an intellectual or a financial sense.”(2)  I do believe thought that our education system as boring and redundant as it may be, it is necessary to give our children an education that will hopefully improve their lives. That’s why it is important to provide some change. Gatto gives the examples of Carnegie, Twain and Farragut among others as successful people who did not finish high school. While similar examples could be pulled from today’s society such as Bill Gates and Steve jobs who did not complete college, these are rare cases that are not relevant to everyone. We live in a more complex world that requires greater and broader knowledge to succeed. It is no longer possible to be successful like Edison by just inviting a light bulb and not all who drops out of high school or doesn’t go to college will get lucky like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Nevertheless, I believe that the major concern here is why there hasn’t been anything done to reform the school system. There should be no reason for graduates to feel as if they have wasted the last fifteen years of their life with pointless busy work.

In conclusion, the point is that we have to recognize the flaws in our educational system so that our future children don’t fall victims to this problem. One thing that I know for sure is that I don’t want my kids to feel how I felt when I started college. I felt like I was cheated. We can say with certainty that parents, families, and communities are as much a part of the educational process as are children, teachers, and staff.

               In his article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto argues that the American public school system conditions children to be gullible mindless consumers. 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 became 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 caring about learning but you can’t blame us we are afraid to fail 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 getting to know who they 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 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 doing what they want. John Gatto believes the American schooling system is made for profits for the economy. The main reason schooling was made to train to make everyone 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 are force 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 to students learning life span.

             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 argument because I believe that most students relate to what he is talking about in the story “Against Schools”.

Hi everyone– the assignment for Unit One is posted under “Unit One” in the header above. It is exactly what I handed out in class, but I have explained a few things and made it look a bit better. Please take a look.

just a reminder that rough drafts of Unit One are due on Tuesday. You will need to write at least 600 words. These can be THE ABSOLUTE WORST TRASH YOU HAVE EVER WRITTEN  and you will get full credit. Likewise, if you do not come to class with a rough draft, you will get no credit at all. Simply finishing the rough draft on time is worth 20% of your grade for this unit, even if your rough draft is terrible. 

To be clear: your assignment for Tuesday is to write a 600 word rough draft for Unit One (the assignment I handed out in class, which is also posted under “Unit One” on the website.) Please post to OpenLab (category “Gatto”) and ALSO BRING A PAPER COPY TO CLASS– IMPORTANT. 

Also read the handout I gave out in class “So What? Who Cares?” I suggest you read that after writing your rough draft!

One last thing: if you are having trouble with the OpenLab, you need to resolve this ASAP. There are people in this class who have not submitted any homework yet! There’s time to turn this around, but I can guarantee you that if you don’t start doing your homework now, you’re not going to pass. 

My plans to reread the article is to read for 10 minutes then take a break from reading then go bake to reading. The break will give me time to get a snack and to check my phone. when also reading will try not to touch my phone so i will put it on the other side of the room. also when reading i will take more notes

When reading the article for a second time, i may sure to pay attention to details of the article. To admit for the first time i just read the article just to read it not actually reading for details or information. while reading for the second time i learned the educational system originated form Prussian origin. When states , ” Our educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is cause for concern. The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again and again once you know to look for it.” (3) He also states , ” But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life,…”(3) When reading the article the first time i skipped over the paragraph when he talks about the history although that was a lot for me to read with out falling asleep. But when reading he makes some good points. Also learned that some big people had a part in the educational system like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and some other people. i didn’t know that they a had a part in the educational system. So safe to say it was a good thing to read for a second time. Maybe the first time you don’t get all the information but giving it a second chance will help you see what you missed.

while I was reading Gatto I had to take mini breaks while reading because I started to get side track. When I didn’t understand something, I would have reread it slowly. When I found words that I didn’t understand, I would simply use the internet to define them so it would give me a better understanding of the sentence. I found myself initially getting lazy by reading the same repeated ideas Gatto was saying over and over. After a while of me taking breaks and going back to reading I slowly started to comprehend the topic without getting side track because I wanted to read the article and get it over with.