Against School John Taylor Gatto Summary

Throughout his essay, he is consistently trying to convince/persuade us to reject public school as a whole while taking control of our kids education. He states that “school trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers”(Gatto). He wants parents to take the lead in helping their children become as great as they can be, they can work a job that may have not been invented yet. Gatto is trying to prove that school doesn’t do anything for children. He then proceeds to give a list of people who didn’t go to school yet they in time became successful, such as: Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington,

When I was a child, my parents would tell me and my siblings that we only have one job and that was to go to school and get good grades. Although we weren’t for school, we knew that we had to go because to be something in the future we need to have some sort of education to be something good in life, but there were some days that we despised school. The day that we despised school was the day after the teachers say to make sure everyone gets a goodnight sleep and a good breakfast, because everyone knew that there was a test coming the next school day. Education journalist Valeri Strauss, in her article How Can Anyone Take Standardized Test Scores Seriously when Stuff like this Happens? explains why the standardized test should not be used to evaluate children’s knowledge or to rate teachers.

Mike Rose, in his excerpt from Why School?, questions the reliability of the educational system and its key focus on economic readiness. He states that schools stress the importance of economics, accountability, and compliance over previously sought over qualities like curiosity, intellect, and courage. Rose argues that education is spread mainly due to economic motivation; money motivates society more than dreams and desires. This economic focus is combined with assessments to calculate the number of students who do poorly in school and weed them out. Rose believes the economic motive merged with this assessment restricts what should be the main focus of school: development.

Novelist, John Taylor Gatto, in his speech essay, “Why Schools Don’t Education”, conveys schools aren’t as educational as they should be. John’s purpose is to narrate the idea that teachers and school district aren’t putting enough effort to educate children and to also motivate more teachers to help bust up children’s education. He adopts a passionate tone in order to appeal in his that education should be taken serious. In order, to convey his appeal of the subject he uses rhetorical analysis to help drill in the audience.

John Taylor Gatto addresses his belief in his article “Against School” that schools have become “laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands.” Students are bored of their teachers, teachers are bored of their students, “who, then, is to blame?” “We all are.” It is our duty as citizens in our society to make sure we are pushing and challenging ourselves every day instead of waiting for another to make it happen for us. The government has become routine enough to allow the few students they believe are capable to continue on their tradition, thus allowing the majority of students fall into useless stereotypes and groups. Students have the ability to manage themselves.

Originally, schools sort the individuals to meet the needs of the labor market, improve skills of individuals which made them more productive on the job resulting in an increase if economic growth and help supplied the demands of the workforce and needs of students. As the years passed, there is a push for academic and vocational school. The vocational school allows students to learn a trade or skill that prepares them for the workforce. Vocational education was advocated as an important answer to economic problems facing the U.S. A vocational guidance counselor has to understand needs of the job market and requirements. The question of whether school was for the public benefit or corporate greed. The article continued to mention that schools are a form of social control. Schools give children a place to be and are thought how to

School determines the type of education a student is allowed to receive based on their social class meaning that the upper class may have access to better books and programs while the poor can not. John Taylor Gatto stated in his essay, "Against School," that the American education system adopted its concept from the Prussian system; one idea that instilled separating and educating students based on

In her narrative essay “The Sanctuary of School,” Lynda Barry recounts a story from her childhood that illustrates her relationships at school vs her relationships at home. She tells us how public school was her sanctuary from her unstable home life. It was a stable environment that she depended on. She tells us this when she says ,"[F]or the next six hours I was going to enjoy a thoroughly secure, warm and stable world." Unlike at home, her school was a place she was noticed and cared about.

The United States’ school system is based on compulsory education laws which required children from 6 to 16 years of age to assist public or private school, for a certain number of years (“Compulsory Education”, 2015). In the past, these laws were put in effect to increase literacy rates and to avoid child labor practice. Unfortunately, there are many people against mandatory public education in America. This is the case of a former New York City teacher, John Taylor Gatto, who in his article “Against School”, he expresses why he believes that the school system is ineffective in helping students to develop their full potential. For Gatto, the system is intended to incapacitate students cultivate leadership skills and turn them into ordinary thinkers with a lack of passion.

In the “Against Schools” article, author John Gatto describes the modern day schooling system and its flaws. He uses several rhetorical strategies in trying to prove his point. He successfully uses all three types of rhetoric in writing this article, which includes ethos, pathos, and logos. He establishes these strategies very early, and often throughout the article. He believes one issues with today’s schooling system is boredom, and that there is a distinct difference between what it means to be educated and schooled. He uses his experience as a public school teacher in his effort to exercise this opinion that he has, which establishes his first rhetoric strategy.

Schooling systems have been the same since anyone could remember. What might need to change for students to get the equal amount of education as the “gifted” students? Will students still benefit from the lack of renewal in the education system? According to the authors from chapter 4 "How We Learn" Alfie Kohn, John Taylor Gatto, Bell Hooks, and Kristina Rizga, explaining in their essays published in "Acting Out Culture" by James S. Miller. They agree the educational system needs a big change if it’s going to impact the future of their students.

When you are young, the world is supposed to be a beautiful place. It should be inspiring; allowing you to believe you can do anything, as long as you are willing to do the work. Schools are supposed to be the initial place you start to grow. Schools are were your mind is shaped, the place where you began to understand a lot of things, educators were willing to teach you and help build you up ; encouraging you to stay focus, wanting you to continue following your dreams. Nowadays, it seems as though children’s dreams and aspirations are fading. Schools are no longer a place for students to strive and better themselves, but it now has become a place of discouragement and punishment. School-to-prison pipeline “refers to the policies and practices

It is hard for a person to learn and develop something that quickly. Many children have been learning things from school. I think being in college is when students really show what they're good at and still learning and developing their intelligence. The two authors of the books, White Like Me by Tim Wise and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, discuss education on their point of view when they experience this during their college years. Coates states, “When our elders presented schools to us, they did not present it as a place of high learning but as a means of escape from death and penal warehousing” (Coates 26). He talks about how education is perpetuating injustice. He thinks that schools are hiding something from the students,

In school, the teachers are focused more on our academics than our life problems. Although the school does teach us some of the basic life skills that we need, they do not teach us the most important ones that revolve around our lives every single day. “Though high school and college are excellent in

The current plight of the American education system is partly due to a serious shortage of teachers who can effectively instruct the students on the material and skills expected of their grade level and beyond. One reason may be because the current requirements for all teacher candidates are quite soft, as in many states, candidates are subject to only a number of requirements, including a bachelor’s degree, the completion of teacher training, an exam of school content knowledge, and other certifications (“Teacher Certification and Licensing Guide”). The most likely reason, however, of low-quality instruction in school is due to an inherent lack of intrinsic motivation and discipline in many teachers to do their best for students to excel in school and life, and if the teachers are too lazy and incompetent to do their jobs, students are more likely to follow that example and do so likewise in their own lives. This is shown in a chapter from Theodore R. Sizer’s book Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School called “What High School Is,” where a story is told from the perspective of Mark, a typical high school student in the United States, including