Gatto RR

Reflecting upon the readings we have discussed thus far, Gatto’s article where he talks about his opinion in which he believes our education system is crippling our kids, was a stance that I agree with for the most part. His opinion of encouraging the best qualities out of our students youthfulness, such as helping them use their natural qualities of curiosity, intrigue and their sense of adventure and adapt into our schooling system contrary to what is in place now . His suggestion of offering more flexibility and being able find the natural path of insight for each individual student wouldn’t just help our students become more fully rounded adults but also help them become more integrated in our society with the education they received.

I was really struck by his opposition of Ingles’ 6 functions, especially the selective function in which it discusses how the school systems application to “the favored races.” Where students are sorted into certain branches creating an inferiority, which then translated into the jobs they have options for, and is a fundamental force in what drives our economy. Instead of using alternative methods in helping the students who are tagged unfit find their niche, in learning things that are crucial to their respective personalities and ideas. But instead these students become neglected and tainted with poor grades, that doesn’t help advance who they are as people but instead giving them a leftover role of our socio-economic structure which only benefits those that weren’t subjected from the very beginning of their education as well as other external factors.

Personally, I agree with a lot of Gatto’s points because it highlights the main issues with our education system. When I was in Middle school, most teachers taught class in a traditional textbook format, but in one class, all of the assignments where open ended and designed to create an environment where critical thought and reflective discussion where more important and overshadowed the sorting functions of grades and tests. As I look back on my time in that class I see that I learned a lot more valuable information not only about the material but as well as myself , opposed to the more the traditionally taught classes that where much more frequent in my k-12 public school life.

Chris L.

"Against School" Reading Response

I love to read. I always have. I read boring things and interesting things, things I remember and mostly things I forget. Lately, I read a lot of critical things- about the government and its leaders. I’ve learned to scan over those oh-so-prevalent expressions of opinion and form my own hypothesis based on what I already know and see. But somehow Gatto’s article “Against School” struck me differently than the rants on the back page of the weekly alternative newspaper. I found myself so excited by the points he was making, so surprised to find that someone, somewhere, had put into words what I had somehow suspected to be true all along, that I nearly emailed the article to my family and friends. I still might.

That sounds geeky, I know, but it has to do with how I was raised. Due to my health, I was unable to attend public school until grade eight, at which time I myself begged my parents to let me enroll. Up until that point, my brother and I were “homeschooled” or at least that’s what we learned to call it. We rarely did anything at all which resembled the arbitrary notion of school most our peers and their parents referred to. We played outside, we read random passages out of encyclopedias for fun, we watched OPB and we cooked with our mom. We were read to at night and slept in as late as we wanted in the morning. It was hardly an ideal environment for fostering intelligence. And to be sure, when I finally entered Junior High at thirteen with no notion whatsoever of how to factor equations, I felt stupid. But I also had experiences much more valuable than the kids around me. I wasn’t used to holding my teachers in near religious reverence, so we related on a more human level. I had never before been punished for getting up to relieve myself without permission and it seemed dehumanizing. And finally, the phenomenon of being “too smart” or “over achieving” would have seemed nearly comical had it not come with so much stigma.

Gatto’s article addressed all these areas and many more. From briefly looking over some of the other responses to this essay, I can tell it was not generally well received. But that seems to prove exactly Gatto’s point. Most children who are taken through a compulsory schooling and spit out, after 12 years, at a point where they can finally choose what they learn and how they learn it, are wholly unprepared to think of their education as anything but obligatory. Having worked very hard myself to get back into school, but not having a classical history in the school system, I can see how “critical thinking”- the type of processes encouraged in higher education but rarely in a mandatory schooling, is key to becoming an educated and well rounded person. But it can only be achieved after the method of thought we have learned from our k-12 education has been abandoned. I don’t think Gatto is really “against school”. I think he is simply against dogmatic thought and its propagation in America’s public school systems. But his point was made and it, incidentally, made me very glad indeed to be back in school at all.

Kate S.