Are you "Against School"?
Gatto's "Against School" sure is a diatribe against what he sees as the deadening effects of our current educational system. One of his chief complaints is that schools do not teach students to grow up. To what extent has that been true in your own experience? What other aspects of his essay had meaning or raised questions for you? Discuss.
Here's a link to an online version of the article.
Consider, for example, how news stories like this one indicate that the system is not really educating students.
43 comments:
I agree when he explains how school does not teach students to grow up, it teaches them to grow older, but not grow up. This is so true, we learn how to deal with different situations we are faced with as we get older, but we don't learn how to grow up, and just learn those things on our own. I have always been told how to go about doing things as I grow up, and have never needed to learn it myself & I think I would grow up more if I was forced to learn more on my own.
We are being educated on what the government wants us to know, what they need us to do, for them, not for us. We are not being educated for US, we are being educated for the people who need educated people to work for them.
-Tia P.
I think that this is true when he says that school does not teach you to grow up. We learn what the teachers teach us, but not things we need in the real world. They hold your hand and make sure you do all of your assignments and keep track. They don't teach you how to be independent and responsible for ourselves. The authorities teach us what they want us to know especially the government.
Sarah S.
i agree completely. schooling teaches you things but just to grow old not to grow up and understand or be creative. we are taught everything in a watered down manner. anything we are taught or given to do is busy work that you will never use again. school is mostly useless and a waste of time until you can graduate and go to college.
Gatto made a distinction between education and schooling because he feels they are not the same. He thinks that children in public schools these days are not getting an education, they are getting schooled. schooled, meaning the children are only taught how to receive systematic instructions and not things they will need in everyday life to help them mature and become adults.
Nordian D.
From my own personal experience of going to school for 12 years I do agree with John Taylor Gatto's "Against School". I agree with him because school doesn't teach you to grow up and be your best, it teaches you to grow old and fit into what society thinks best.But who is society to say what is best for each unique individual. School doesn't teach people how to be an individuals it teaches people how to conform to its structured society. I also agree with Gatto when he says, "We have been taught in this country to think of "success" as synonymous with....."schooling" because that is true. In this country if we we don't finish school like majority of society or like society tells us, then we are said to not be successful in life, but over hundreds of years many people have lived without even going to school.
Branden M
i believe that the author was right when he talked about how school does not teach the students to grow up. most high schools nurture the students to make sure that they graduate because they want to have a good percentage of student gradiation. The teachers teach what they have to teach because that is what states set as a cirriculum. Schools do not want to create individuals they want everyone to fit a certain mold and have a certain education profile. Students do not know have a real sense of the real world and are not prepared for college in some cases.
-Caitlin G.
We are not taught to grow up we are taught our age and how we should act at that age. We are taught what adults think we should know in order to grow up but we never have a chance to figure things out for ourselves. Adults often say that they don’t want us to make the same mistakes that they made, but how will we learn if we aren’t allowed to mess up sometime? In order to succeed you have to fail and that, I believe, is a part of growing up.
~Christine L.
I agree with Gatto when he says that our schools don't teach students how to grow up. In my personal experience, it seems to me like teachers are more concerned with teaching from a textbook rather than speaking from their hearts. The curriculum seems demanding, and so the teachers teach what they have to to meet the quota and don't go any further to explain how the material relates to real life because there is a lot of textbook information to cram into a short amount of teaching time. To teach maturity, teachers need to be personable and teach students how to mature using their own past experiences. In order for the schools to help students mature, they should offer lessons in decision making, responsibility, independence, and individuality. Also, I think teachers avoid getting too close with their students because of people like Mary Kay Letourneau who have tarnished the student/teacher relationship for everyone.
Alyssa S.
After reading the essay "Against School" by Gatto, I would have to say that I agree with what he wrote about how schooling does not teach us as students to grow up. For me personally, I learn better in a more hands on environment, and the things that I have learned and grown from have not been from the schooling I've received, but from things I've experienced in the real world. Most of what schooling seems to be is just 'busy work' and it is not what teaches us to grow as our own person. Also, we are sort of forced into what society plans for us with going to school and with the idea that success comes from more years of schooling. As he stated in one part, there are many important people in our worlds history that have not received all years of schooling, and they have still been successful. They want us to be ready for certain life experiences by going to school, but that is not what is going to teach us what we need to know about going into the real world.
Erin P.
I think Gatto's outlook on school depends on where you grew up. I feel in my highschool I wasn't challeged to my full extent. I felt like a lot of the teachers just went through the motions each day to get there jobs done. Like Gatto explained in the essay, this would leave the teachers and students bored. However I did have many teachers who truley loved their jobs and forced their students to succeed. These teachers would always make sure we were busy so we were never bored, and in these classes I found I succeeded the most. I also agree in some ways and disagree in other ways when Gatto says we are taught to grow older but not up. I feel there are a lot of subjects that we're required to take that don't intrest us. I fell if we had more choices and more possibilities for different classes we would be able to grow into our own person. If students were able to take more classes that intrested them I think less students would be bored.
-KimAustin
I agree with the writing when it says that schooling does not allow students to grow up on their own. We are all conformed and act like robots on a daily schedule for 12 years. We need to experience some things on our own, and learn responsibility not from fear of our teachers but because its something that we want for ourselves. I know that in school if I wasnt hasseled I would be more likely to want to do the assignment. In school we learn what others want us to learn and not what we want to learn. Who decides what we learn? I think it should depend. We may be learning facts, but not really life lessons or how to fit into society.
-Ashley Bosselman
I agree with kim, i feel it does matter where you go school. My high school for example taught us everything we need to know about college work and such. But I also agree with Gatto on how schooling doesnt teach you to life lessons, it just teaches you math english and those sorts of things, and guides you. The things we learn in school are things that the teachers are required by teh government to teach us.
Lauren C.
I think i would have to agree with John Taylor Gatto on that statement. I believe schools do not teach us how to grow up, they only go over the basics like math, writing, social studies, science, and maybe a language. These subjects may help us go through life, but it does not help up grow up. I feel like we learn how to grow up from the people around us like our family and friends, not our schools. After reading the first paragraph of this article about boredom i feel everything that was said was right. School is boring; doing busy work, repeating work that we have alreayd learned in prior grades, learing things we already know, and having boring teachers isnt a great way to learn at all. School can be boring when all those things come into play, and we need interesting and upbeat teachers who have fun and new ways of teaching to help us. Maybe school wouldnt be so boring, and students would be willing to learn. Who knows!
-Sara Jannuzzi
Good, lively discussion! What do you all think about the MCAS article?
Just to play devil's advocate a little -- does anyone think that Gatto goes too far or seems cynical?
Keep the responses specific! It's good to hear people respond using their own experiences.
I think that Gatto's "Against School" to an extent is very true. Schools do seem like experiments on young minds and drill centers for children to fit in with social demands. Another point I do agree with Gatto on is that boredom is caused by ourselves. I feel like this is something related to my own experiences because whenver I am bored when in reality I am just do not feel like finding something to entertain me. Overall I agree with most of this essay and find this topic a very interesting one.
--->Jenna Elliott
From my own experiences while in school, i agree with Gatto when he says that school doesn't teach students how to grow up. School teaches its students how to fit into society and the majority, rather than to be unique and act as an individual. Also school treats its students like children and basically holds them by the hand. Then when it comes time to enter the real world, its pretty much a slap in the face. I also agree with Gatto when he says that "we have been taught in the country to think of "success" as synonymous with "schooling"" becuase society has stamped those who go to school as successful, and those who didn't are "dumb" and "won't amount to anything." Most people can agree when i say that most of us learn from our environment and our surroundings, rather than sitting in a classroom having someone dictate facts to us.
Amanda B.
I sort of agree with him. Schools
don't teach you how to grow up. But, that's something you have to do for yourself. You can't be taught how to grow up, you can only be taught things that will grow your mind. A lot of the stuff they teach us in school are nothing that we'll use in the future, but we still need to learn them. You never know. Also, my mom told me that you need to learn a bunch of stuff in different subjects to expand your mind, so that when you do need to, or want to, learn something, it'll be easier. Now, if this is true, I haven't a clue. But it makes sense. See, I haven't grown up yet. I'm still a kid at heart. That's never going to change, no matter what. As long as you can turn it off, and be a an adult. But, you need to learn how to by yourself.
As for the other article...I'm from NY; it's the only state in the US that still has regents exams. I hate them. You have to pass them in order to graduate. It's not fair. The teachers only teach you what is usually on the exams. Yea, it changes every year, but they know the types of questions that are on there. It does help you pass the exams, but grades aren't everything. It's more important to learn all about the subject, not just the things that could show up on the regents. I wanted to learn more about something in science once, and my teacher said that we couldn't spend a lot of time on that subject because we needed to focus on the regents lesson. Frankly, it sucked. I agree with this quote from the second article. "Educators who oppose including a science requirement in the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System said that adding science to the growing list of exams students must pass to graduate will force teachers to teach to the test, will limit time for experiments, and could zap students' enthusiasm for the subject." It's true, just visit a NY high school if you don't believe me.
~~Heather Chalone~~
I think schools teach us lessons that our age will face upon but not for life lessons. We are taught how to do something but nothing that will help us in the real world. I feel as though we should be taught real life expectancies. I agree with failure, sometimes people need to make mistakes in order to understand whats right.
- Leslie S.
When reading this piece I was forced to remember how school has affected my life, and the lessons I have learned thus far. I would say I have to agree with John Gatto's theory about the "schooling" system. I do not think that school teaches kids to grow up, it only forces societies ideas and the governments thoeries about what we, the kids, need to know. I feel that the school systems here force information on you, not things you will need to know to make real life decisions. Although many lessons taught in school are worth learning, many life lessons needed to succeed are not taught through a history course or in a text book. There are things people need to learn on thier own, through thier own mistakes and experiences.
From my personal experience through out school, I have to admit it wasnt youre average experience, I did not learn a single real life thing from school. Everything I have figured out so far has come from out side life, things that do not pertain to homework, courses I am taking, or what my teacher thinks I need to know that year. I think that with this judgement I agree with the fact that schooling is not an education, it is more or less of a brainwash.
J Haley
I agree with Gatto’s theory of the public school systems and how they do not promote maturity in their students. I come from a decent sized city, and most of my middle school consisted of kids from the “inner city”. Because a lot of my classmates came from difficult livig environments, the teachers seemed to either teach the lesson of the day and then want nothing more to do with us, or they were constantly trying to hold our hand when we started to have trouble. I wasn’t exposed to many academic challenges, and therefore suffered academically in the beginning of high school, where I was suddenly supposed to start thinking “outside the box”. I also agree with Gattos second statement of how the public school system takes a toll on the teachers as well. Many of the administrators and teachers that I can remember seemed to hate their repetitive daily routine, and the environment of the school reflected this. There were dull colors, old staircases, dusty windowsills, and metal grates over the screens of the windows. Needless to say, it was not a very inviting work environment for the teachers. I believe that education is a problem with many inner city school districts. However, I would not say the same about every teacher of every school in the country. I do believe that some districts have recognized these problems, but I don’t think that the issue has gone away quite yet.
-Christina Coll
Gatto feels very strongly about the fact that public education does not teach students how to grow up and I completely agree with that. In most high schools, my own included, you learn certain lessons in certain books because that is the cirriculum that the teachers are told they have to teach you by the time you complete a certain grade-level in school. The government is so worried about maintaining a positive image for themself that they don't pay any attention at all to how many students are bored out of their mind in school, honestly, have you ever heard anyone say they dropped out of high school because it was too challenging..often times the excuse they use for dropping out is, 'I was bored' or 'When will I ever need 90% of what they are teaching me?'
Certain government and/or state agencies are very concerned with maintaining a certain image of success that once they see something drop below what they view as a satisfactory level the rules change. For example, a few years ago they saw MCAS scores dropping so they made it a requirement that you take a practice MCAS and then the real thing a while after to prepare you, they baby students throughout their entire academic career and make it seem like they are doing it for their own benefit when in reality they are just setting students back.
In the 5th paragraph in the article about the poor MCAS scores it says, "Given our economy, science will be a critical component of determining these kids' futures." What that really means is when that generation goes into the real world there will be jobs in the scientific field that need to be filled with efficient people and at this rate that looks unlikely and the government wants that fixed to help save the economy, not help the students.
Gatto's writing brings up many facts that people tend to overlook because they don't want to believe that "success" does not go hand-in-hand with "schooling." Success is actually synonymous with determination and reliability...the public education system discourages these traits in students by setting such strict guidelines on them during the most important years of their lives; so in long run the public education system is often times hindering the success of the people they shape each student out to be.
Krysten A
I agree with the fact that school doesn't teach students how to grow up, it just teaches them how to be able to do work at a higher level. For the most part, all of the things I have learned about growing up, I have picked up from my personal life experiences, or from my parents and older brother. We are learning things in school that will help us get into a good college, and possibly even things that we may need one day in the workplace, but common sense things, such as how to react in certain situations, we are foreced to be on our own. I don't think it would be easy for schools to teach students all life experiences, but I do think it is important for students to learn how to take care of themselves because one day when they are living on their own, those things that they may not have learned in their personal life, may come in handy.
--Molly Pasman
To my extent in my personal experience, I have noticed that schools do not teach students to grow up but to rather "school" us our age. What we learn in class pertains to our age and what we should know at that particular age. Year by year, the students advance by as a conformed group to learn the materials taught to us. The basic arithmetic, writing, and science are set precedent for us to learn. The teachers teach us to assume the role of our age rather than to discover ourselves and our capabilities. Growing up is a process that is taken over time. The children are shaped by society and their environment. In a school environment, we learn the materials and subjects of that nature. In society, we are greatly influence by anything that comes our way. To some degree, I disagree with what Gatto says. School can only teach you so much. A lot of the growing up process is molded by environment, society, and the individual. I believe what Gatto is trying to say is that schools should teach you to grow up and that schools have a big advantage in molding us into who we are. My personal beliefs tell me that schools are not required to "teach" us how to grow up but rather learn the subjects that we are intended to learn. I like the fact that growing up, many children can relate to one another based on what they know. As ones' education increases, the subject becomes more diverse and accomodates ones' personal interest, but not for all. In a school setting to me, the growing up process is greatly influenced by recess time. Children engage and communicate with one another along with learning from one another. In the classroom, we question what we know to further our knowledge that I believe helps us grow. Why do you think we raise our hands?
Gatto's statement of children being bored is very true in itself. Children are bored because they are not taught what they can utilize. At such a naive young age, most children have a fairly short attention span. You can only hold their attention for so long. If you have their interest, they will surely learn something. Gatto seems to be saying that school is like communism--which is true to some extent. We basically all learn the same thing. But he is upset that we don't learn how to grow up. How can you teach children to "grow-up" in a classroom. Children are all at different levels of knowledge and we are growing up differently. Gatto's standard of educaton is taken to a whole new depth. My ideals of education involves basic knowledge of the subjects taught to us. How can a school/teacher teach their students to "grow-up." School, society, and my environment has shaped me to what I am today--an indiviual who learns what she wants to learn.
-Christine Lam
I believe that Gatto's passage was an accurate description of the American school system. Having attended private schools for all of grammar and high school, I can attest that many of the points he makes are things I had experienced on some level. Although my high school made a strong attempt at "maturing" young minds, it still left gaps for students to slack off and act childish. What it boils down to is that all high schools try to teach you the same information: how to read, write, perform mathematical equations, etc. They all try to teach you the basic fundamentals to survive in the real world and work for the man, not be the man. Very few schools try to teach maturity and responsibility - things that will help you become an adult and an independent person. The reason so many American jobs are being taken away by foreigners is because the youth in this nation are not takin it seriously and working to their full potential. They care more about partying and shopping in many cases than their academics. Foreigners are more goal orientated and take their educations more seriously than Americans. The educator's themselves are partially to blame because they should be holding the students more responsible and trying to push them along. If they continue to baby students they will never mature and become free thinkers. This essay made me think about reconstructing the American school system; holding students more accountable for their attitude and maturity in the classroom. It's clear that our system is not doing its job.
I think that he is right about schools. I dont think that they let you grow up and learn about life. I think that teachers teach you what they want to hear. Not nessasarly about the things in life you should be learning about. I think school should be more open about new things and more flexiable. I have learned that i learn just as many important things outside the classroom as i do inside of it. I think it was interesting on how he got the history of school systems and how they started back in Prussia.
Carolann M.
I believe it is true when he says that school does not teach us to grow up. In school I never really learned how to deal with a lot of aspects of life, I learned basic grammer, math, science, and basic history, but how much of that do we use daily. What made us the people and the maturity that we have is developed by what we have been around and experienced in our own lives. WHen he says that most of the brillent people in this world did not go through the education system it is true because they were creative and they weren't told what to think by teachers and administrators.
Kristina B
I think that school teaches students to grow up to an extent. Through school, students are able to learn responsibility and time manangement which are great qualities to have in the "real world". I do think high schools need to start straying from the curriculum and teaching things that are more relevant in their student's lives. I think high school makes student's learn and memorize all this useless information that will never really benefit them. I think high school would help students mature if teachers incorporated more beneficial information in with the school's mandatory curriculum.
In this essay, Gatto seemed very against the school system and how it is run. I don't think that all aspects of our school system are bad, but I do think there is room for improvement. I think letting students be individuals and focusing on more important issues is one thing that should change. When I went to high school it was so important that students never wore hats in school. But at the same time bullying and fighting was always going on at my school. So that is a good example of schools focusing on silly rules, when they should be putting more effort into more important issues.
It is hard to pick a side on this agreement to be either with Gatto or not with Gatto when he believes that school simply teaches simple instructions or directions, rather than things a person will need throughout their life living. It seems to me like in school, we are being educated on the basic information needed to know to help us in life such as get appropriate jobs. It shows you how to fit in with society this way. However in my opinion, truely "growing up" is an entirely different concept.
Jessica Wood
School, i think is a very uniform thing. the only thing it really is teaching you is what you need to "know" to move on to the next grade. i don't think that it teaches anything outside of the box. that outside of the box teaching i believe comes in college or depending on what kind of high school you may attend sometimes you will have outside the box teaching in high school. the funny thing is that the outside the box teaching comes in college when you are actually paying for it or if you attend a private high school which is also paid for. If i were to say solely based on what i have learned in my 12 years of school so far has been what has helped me grow up, that would be a lie. i don't think school teaches anyone how to grow up, and i think growing up is part of a life that isn't affected by school.
samantha s
This story brings up some very interesting points about education. From reading this piece you can see that students aren’t going to school to become educated but to be schooled. They are put through a monotonous and repetitive schedule for 12 years and for many people it is nothing but boredom. He says he started to ask, why not, I think this is a question people don’t ask enough. It is hard to dispute that the system is not educating because it is determined to do so by the government. This brings up intriguing ideas, also the purpose and especially, privilege, of school has been forgotten. School does teach us about the basic groups that are required, math, science, history, exc. but it also teaches us how to apply ideas and theories to other things in life. As well as social skills and what it means to be an abiding citizen. School may not be the way to successfully educate students, and this writing supports that idea.
-Francis Adams
It is true that the 12-year school system does not teach children to grow up. It shelters them and teaches them, for lack of better word, "pretty" things. In public schools, I was taught equations, grammar and formulas. But I was never taught about anything I would have to deal with in the real world. School systems barely talk about health (in the sex education sense), I barely heard anything about drugs, sex, race, or political issues until I was a Senior in High School. Do they really wanna send us out into the world with that kind of naivety?
Not only that, school systems have stressed far too much importance on tests that represent students and numbers, not people. Where students are judged by a score, not intelligence. Numbers mean nothing, I've met plenty of peers who scored impressively on SATs and I cannot have an intelligent conversation with. Schools drill useless information into children so eventually, as John Taylor Gatto pointed out, they stop thinking. They eventually get older and become consumers. Consuming nonstop, becoming addicts because it is how they have been conditioned.
-Christine S.
I disagree with his statement that school does not teach kids to grow up. Maybe it doesn't teach kids to grow up directly but the process of going through highschool and experiencing all those new things and changes cause kids to grow up, regardless of the school they attend. At school we are being forced to learn exactly what the government wants us to learn. This doesn't mean school is all bad though. Most of the areas school teaches us about are good to know and I am glad I learned it. That being said I would like to say that i hate school I just don't agree with the fact that school doesn't teach you to grow up.
- Sam Wilcox
At first I thought that his writing was ridiculous and that the school systems were to help educate the public. Then he started talking about how they break down the students to make them conform. The point where I started to understand him more was when he said "divide children by age, subject...and many other subtle means and it would be unlikely that the ignorant mass separated at childhood would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole. This is when I realized that this makes children conform to each other and that I had been through the same experience. His “conformity function” theory made me look back to elementary school and think how it might of changed me.
Jonathan M.
I agree with Gatto on his outlook about how schools educate people, but it does not teach them to grow up. Students are taught what is necessary for them to move up in a grade. They aren't being taught how to develop as a person or mature into adult life. Like Gatto said, a considerable number of well-known Americans did not get an education through a 12 year system. They might be unschooled, but not uneducated. Some of these people helped shape America into what it is today. Personally, I know people that either did not graduate from high school or did not further their education after high school, and some of these people are very educated, just in a different way.
-Sarah C.
I do not think school makes students grow up completly as individuals. It makes students grow up in a sense that they do not feel left behind from their peers. A lot of students face peer pressure and feel they need to be like everyone else. Teachers try to make children grow up by teaching them new information that will hopefully let them grow smarter. Although, learning from a book may not allow all students to grow up as people, because thats how I feel. I feel I learned new information at school, but socially I grew up by my surroundings at home and by being around older role models. Other aspects of his essay that had meaning was when he says "School trains children to be employees and consumers," I feel like this is true and I would have never given that thought until I read this.
-Meghan Kearney
I definitely agree with this piece of writing. In my own experience, I've learned that teenagers are actually very immature. When it comes to schoolwork a lot of kids don't care about it and don't feel like doing it. I think the reason we are all here is to receive a piece of paper called a "degree" in order to get a high paying job. No one is in school for the textboook information. When the author talks about how men and woman were considered adults at the age of thirteen, it blows my mind. It makes me wonder if we would be better off learning for ourselves after all.
comment below my Ashley d'Entremont
I agree with Gatto when he says that school does not teach students to grow up, but I don't think that is the responsibility of the school. We are in school to learn and as the courses get harder each year kids learn that in order to do well they need to study harder. This is what I believe makes us grow up, and you can tell the difference from the kids who do grow up and who don't. We are always growing from our surroundings and it's not like you tell yourself everyday ok I need to grow up, it's just something that happens over time.
Tracy Elwell
School doesn't teach students to grow up. They are there to help you learn and be prepared for what comes next, whether its college or a job, or something else. Part of the preparation is to grow up but to me thats not the schools job. The schools job is to give you knowledge and teach you, not to teach you how to act more mature or older. You learn that by influence of family and friends and the environment around you.
Maria D.
I agree with Gatto when he talks about how school doesn't teach student how to grow up. I don't think schools can teach students to grow up. I think growing up is a personal thing, someone cant be taught to grow up they just do. school teach student about academics, they teach student math and Spanish. They do not teach them how to deal with real life situations. Schools teach what society wants then to, they teach what will make students "successful". Success isn't all about how much you know its about what you do with what you know and how you apply it. Some of the greatest people don't even go to school. School doesn't teach anyone how to grow up, people learn from what they do.
Aly T.
I think what he says is true about school not teaching students to grow up. Teachers do teach you things but not necissarily what you need to know in life to mature into an adult. In my opinion half the things we learn in shool we will never need to know or will see again in our lives, it's pointless to learn them. You grow up when you go to college but i don't think thats 100% true. When you think great I'm goin to college i can learn what I want now, about my career in life. Thats not true you still have to take unecissary classes you took in high school that have nothing to do with your major.
J.Campbell
I agree somewhat with his idea that school's do not really teach kids to grow up, they more or less leave that up to the kids to do themselves. I think something that should be changed is growing up for college. When I got to college it was such a big difference from high school, and my high school gave us little to no preperation for college.
-Alexandra P.
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