HallSpring19_1101

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*

Continue reading “Final Draft”

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

 

 

Are Our Children Victims of a Shitty Educational System?

Do you believe that you have received the education that you deserve? 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 though that 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 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 inventing 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.

 

Works Cited

Gatto, John. “Against Schools.”, 2003

 

                School-Nuturing Growth, or Zombies?

 

Zevanya

Carrie Hall

English 1101

21 February 2019

Laboratories of Experimentation on Young Minds

In today’s time, due to our advanced technology and forever growing economy, society has managed to convince some students into thinking that school might not be as necessary as we all thought. We have people making money just by eating in front of a screen and posting it on YouTube as well as people sacrificing themselves just for the sake of “views” and “good content.” Seeing people like this will bring about the question of “why then do we need education when we can do the same?”

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. 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.

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, 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 beneficial 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, by short I mean five to six lines.

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 a chance of receiving a proper education.

In Indonesia, numerous children around the age of five to thirteen are unable to receive an education. They had no choice but to help their parents earn money by selling water, tissues, and cigarettes. Also, you would find numerous kids on the streets in Jakarta playing the role as an unofficial parking ranger. Keep in mind that the government does not pay these kids, they receive their income from small tips from people riding cars, motorcycles or trucks. Around four years ago my mother’s company held a volunteer work trip. My mother asked around ten kids what their future goals were and every one of them replied the same, they all wanted to go to school, wear uniforms and learn something.

It broke my heart to hear that these kids only wanted something so simple but was something most of us took for granted. 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.

In conclusion, students should start thinking about education as an investment for their future. Although Gatto describes public schools as “laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands.” my school was more similar to a laboratory that ran tests on students to upgrade them into a better version of themselves by putting us through infinite challenges and diverse settings related to the real world. There is a famous idiom in Indonesia that says “Bersakit-sakit dahulu bersenang-senang kemudian” which directly translates to “No pain, no gain.” As the prominent philosopher Robert Leamnson puts it, “learning is not something that just happens to you, it is something that you do to yourself.” We cannot expect the best and most fortunate outcomes if we do not put effort into achieving them.

Works Cited:

Gatto, John Taylor “Against School”

Leamnson, Robert “Learning(Your First Job)”

Hey Everyone! Your final drafts of your essay are due on Thursday. Remember that papers are due by 11:30 AM (the beginning of class.)

Please contact me if you have questions! Also, please note that Aaron Barlow will be doing tutoring in his office tomorrow from 10-3. He is in Namm 503.

Also, please note that I will no longer tolerate sleeping in class (or the appearance of sleeping.) If your eyes are closed and you are not doing the in-class writing tasks, you are a distraction to me and to your colleagues and you will be asked to leave (and counted as absent.)