Every morning, American youths are waking up and going to work. What job do a sixteen-year-old and a six-year-old have in common? School. Primary education is necessary for a majority of developed countries and secondary education is highly encouraged as well. Societies support this mandate on the belief that school provides an “education”. How does one become truly educated though? True education can be developed in schools, but many gain one outside of that institution, through informal schooling or work experience. Being truly educated stems from being knowledgeable. How is being knowledgeable about a subject determined though? Through mastery of the skill, meaning the ability to apply what one has learned to a relevant situation. A student who memorizes the quadratic formula but is not able to use it in a word problem does not have mastery of the formula. When a child learns the alphabet and subsequently uses these skills to spell out their own name, they have mastered the alphabet. Gatto addresses this disparity as “taking an education” versus “receiving a schooling” in his essay “Against School” (272). Students who merely “take an education” input the knowledge with …show more content…
Brick walls, white classrooms, brown desks. While there are many flaws within the institutionalized American school system, there are benefits in the foundational ideas that can create a true educational environment for young children. Children’s brains are hardwired to digest information. They are coming to terms with the world around them all at once and tend to do so with cheerful exuberance. These are the “best qualities of youthfulness-curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight” (Gatto 272). Children are capable of so much but to become truly educated, they need to learn to enjoy the process of learning. School has the potential to provide this through many ways, the first being social
I have strong convictions that leave me to believe that a college education is imperative. On average, a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree earns a lot more in a year than a high school graduate. During the recession between three years jobs requiring some college or an associate's degree fell by a substantial amount, and jobs that are requiring a high school degree. In the article “ Is a College Education Worth It?” by Henry Punionion, he encapsulates the essences of the importance of a college education.
Furthering his argument that school isn't needed for success , Gatto states “ George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were not products of a school system, and none of these men graduated from a secondary school.” Gatto wants the readers to understand that these are well known Americans who are still highly talked about till this day but have succeeded without a 12 year schooling method that we use in this modern day. Gatto brings up an eye opener with these six functions of modern schooling stating “The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. 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.
Gatto argues that the modern educational system needs to be reformed. In his initial paragraph, Gatto describes the boredom that students suffer from in the classroom. He accredits this boredom to the currrent educational system that enforces conformity and despises creativity and originality. Creativity and originality, which are the ways in which children express themselves and therefore entertain themselves, are not welcomed in this educational system. Gatto uses personal anecdotes and historical context to argue his points.
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,
Many topics concerning education and its institutions are discussed in Amanda Ripley’s book “The Smartest Kids in The World: and how they got that way,” however, one of the most interesting can be found in chapter five “An American in Utopia.” The introduction of Kim, an American exchange student studying at a high school in Pietarsarri, Finland opens the chapter. Using Kim’s experiences in the Finish school system, Ripley continues to make a comparison between the students' in Finland and the United States. This segment highlights Finish teachers and students viewing education as a legitimate pursuit, while the American students more often than now saw it as a forced activity.
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.
It is well known that education in society today is a crucial component for achieving success in the modern world. Illustrating this importance is the fact that the United Sates has made K-12 schooling mandatory for all students and even provides this education free of charge to everyone via its public school system. However, despite the fact that the intentions for our public education system are good-natured, at least on the surface, some rather critical viewpoints have developed that put into question the true motivations surrounding this type of schooling. Most notably, John Taylor Gatto, a writer and former school teacher with just about 30 years of experience in the New York public school system, provides his take on the true purposes of our educational system. He argues that, based on his considerable experience in the field, this system fails miserably to succeed in its perceived — but not at all correct — goal of producing good people and citizens that are performing at their personal best.
According Gatto, a man who speaks from both the perspective of a student and a teacher, the education system in America is truly a marvel of modern social engineering. He argues the problems commonly associated with American education are just the opposite because, in his view, what some view as issues, are what society has created as the fundamental pillars of schooling. It is his belief that school simply exists not to educate, but to instill the qualities necessary to produce a compliant work force. Thus, the twelve years of schooling millions of kids experience all across the United States only plans to ‘dumb [them] down’ (Gatto, 2003). All the time, money, and effort these kids impart unto their studies in the hopes of learning is only
Almost all children love to write funny stories or just express their imaginations with music or a paint brush. That’s why there are creative, talented students thinking they aren’t smart enough because everything they were best at in school wasn’t stigmatized or valued in any way. In the story “ Against Schools’’ by John Taylor Gatto. Gatto stated how students were bored and that boredom was the new modern day experience for a student.
en Z1791763 EPFE 321 Mid-term Over the years there have been many different views on the direction that education and schooling will take in the role of the United States society taken by influential people. Some of these people included the Puritans of the Plymouth Colony, who believed that children needed to work to prevent them from being influenced by the devil. Thomas Jefferson who believed that everyone needs to be educated for the betterment of society and that people should earn their respect and merits and that it shouldn’t be just given out for nothing. Horace Mann started to try and standardize schooling so that if children moved they would still be learning nearly the same curriculum that they had left, he also tried to further
What is school really trying to do with our lives? The article “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto is an article that talks about the problem of schools and how the goals are not what they say they are. First. the author talks about how the school system creates boredom and what could be done to fix it. He then talks about how school is not needed in its required class times, what the schools say the goals are for the students, and where our school system originated from.
The diversity of student backgrounds, abilities and learning styles makes each person unique in the way he or she reacts to information. The intersection of diverse student backgrounds and active learning needs a comfortable, positive environment in which to take root. Dr. King continues by explaining, “Education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.” From back then to today’s society, kids are failing because they lack those morals that they need to succeed.
Education is gained and developed by one's life and values. Education is more than just reading textbooks, going to class, and repeating that cycle. Education is life and knowledge. People can gain education through experiences in the real world. Tara Westover, the author of the book Educated, recounts her life's journey from childhood to the present, in doing so she reinforces the theme that education is the key to change.
I think that the physical environment can play a major role in a child’s learning. If the classroom is very closed off and blocked the children will not feel free to explore their surrounding and become more independent. Ms. Laura’s classroom is very open and spaced out, even though the center itself is built with an open concept and only having half walls to divide the classrooms. She has organized the room in such a way that every though the different centers are clearly laid out, it’s not in such a way that makes them feel enclosed and blocked off from the rest of the room. The environment offers children a variety of different choices all in one area, all of the math, science, and table toys are together, so that a child does not have to search the entire room for something that they are looking for.
What is a college education? What is it meant for? Are too many high school graduates attending a four-year post-secondary education? James Adams said, “There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.”