Gatto Against School Response

I did not agree with Gatto’s idea against school. Of course we all think that our education system is holding us back from our intellectual potential. But we have to go to school becausewe have to learn to adapt to our society. Courses in high school may seem pointless but their purpose is to help your mind grow so that when you come upon later courses such as medicine or business you’ll be mentally prepared for them.

Gatto enforces his argument with people who lived over a hundred years ago. It was a different time back then. Only a few were to have a school education. It was an entirely different culture. Today if we were to not go to school most of us would even have the discipline to contribute enough back to society. How will doctors know the necessary information to perform medicine? Or how would entrepreneurs start successful companies if they didn’t know the necessary actions to run a business. Without education society would go down. It’s hard to believe but I think that it is the simple truth.

Garret K.

Secrets of the Mind overview

Secrets of the Mind

I’m going to use this entry to provide a quick overview of the events of the video to inform your discussions, since you have no text to which you can refer back. Of course I’m brimming w/ interpretations and connections, but I’ll try and resist the temptation to dive in for the moment. You, on the other hand, should have at it. What do these dysfunctions tell us about normal consciousness and awareness?

Neurologist : V.S. Ramachandran

Phantom Limb Sensations following amputation. Pain and sensation of a limb which is gone. (the sensory neurons which delivered information from the limb to the brain survive the loss of the limb, any activation of those neurons is perceived as occurring at the limb) Reassignment of the somato-sensory cortex region from arm to cheek

Blind Sight. Perception of motion, but no conscious awareness of an object's shape, color, size etc. Ramachandran uses the phenomenon to illustrate that our brain can be receiving visual information without our being aware of it. I find it a better demonstration that the various components of vision (color, shape, motion, …) travel by different pathways and then are reassembled for conscious awareness in the primary visual cortex in the rear of the cerebrum (occipital lobe). He talks about “What” pathways by way of the temporal lobe which are involved in the identification of objects and “How” pathways which are more concerned with how we move through the environment (the visual cues that you use to ride a bicycle or hit a baseball or duck an oncoming tree limb). When is consciousness helpful, when is it detrimental? Peggy was the woman whose stroke in the parietal lobe interfered w/ her awareness of the left visual field including her memories and her daisy drawings

Capgras Delusion: Impostor Syndrome. David thinks that his parents are impostors. When he only hears their voices he acknowledges them as his parents. Ramachandran proposes that the delusion stems from an injury in the connection between the “What” visual center in the temporal lobes with the Amygdala which is the area where visual info enters the Limbic System, the source of your emotional reactions.

Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: epilepsy is a disease in which there are episodes of uncontrolled brain activity resulting in seizures. In this specific case the patient experiences periods of enlightenment or rapture following the seizures in which he perceives a wide range of events as having profound, even religious, significance. Ramachandran points out the areas affected include the links between the Amygdala and the Temporal Lobe.

Gatto response.

As a student, I agree with Gatto. Young adults shouldn’t push themselves so hard to reach social acceptance in terms of education. I don’t like the rigorous schedule we are forced to undergo from the time we enter primary school to the day of our graduation. Why must a simple letter determine our worth? If I get an A in chemistry, for example, I’m determined to be intelligent… but what if I simply memorized the text? That means I’m capable of jumping through the hoops placed in front of me, not that I proved I can actually succeed, or that I challenged myself. Critical thinking and intelligence comes from learning how to apply the information I have absorbed, not just displaying the capacity to satisfy the instructor's commands and instruction.

It really disturbed me when Gatto mentioned his job loss. For someone held in such high-esteem to be replaced so easily, it really shocked me to know that it could happen to anyone, because the corporate mindset doesn’t focus on us individually. Gatto was completely right. I feel like my talent and unique personality is hidden away in the pursuit for the good grade. I loved this article, it made me realize I can still achieve my dreams regardless of how I am judged by society’s standards.

Clara G.

Gatto-Against School

Should we be going to school or being forced to go to school all these days; its usually " six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years?" Is this really necessary for one to get a good education nowadays and become someone successful and have a whats considered a good life?...I think that to become an educated person you don't have to end up going to school for years and years to come. This country has brought us up thinking that for one to gain "success", we've got to go K-12 and then continue onto a college or university for us to become someone who will be appreciated and recognized by the community. Many examples of famous people come to mind to me: Lil Wayne, Benjamin Franklin, Abe Lincoln and many others who didn't go to school but still came out with an education and made something really great from their lives. I'm not stating that we should all dropout and find our own way of getting knowledge but if schools not for us and we can still move forward and gain a career that will provide for one's self our or family and give us a life that we'll enjoy. :D

PLATO

Reading this allegory enabled me to reflect. Of course, while reading all of our texts, there has been some critical thinking involved in each. I enjoyed reading it. Plato causes you to think critically because of being interested and not because of being asked too. I enjoyed his views on how being enlightened can have pros and cons. I liked the picture I got to mind when he portrayed would it would be like to be enlightened and to go back to where one came from and from being in darkness and experiencing light.

It seems that when you have been naive, whether it be in certain areas of your life or because of being sheltered, and you are introduced to the light of knowledge and truth, that things would become better and clearer. Sometimes, I believe Plato was inferring, that you can lose sight of the value of being enlightened and mistake it for being better than someone else or rather, the people that are in the position you were once in.

He brings up politics , as he was very involved in this area during his time, and he goes off on the limb with the bold statement to say that the enlightened are the leaders. That statement holds a lot of truth. But even those politicians lose sight to the problems that once hindered them.

While it seems confusing, Plato made a lot of points that have to do with today's society.

Buffalo Gals

Buffalo Gals challenged me to think beyond what I was reading. I had to think about who coyote was and what she represented. Humans and animals are very alike in many ways. This story showed that animals have lives and families just like humans do. It showed how they helped and loved each other. They have emotions and struggles like humans have. The story really showed these similarities.

By the end of the story, the little girl was able to see the animal world and the human world as the same. She learned to give respect to living things. Unfortunately, she was also able to see the evil in the world when coyote was killed. She didn’t want to go back to world she came from where humans were all that mattered. She had been enlightened and inspired by her new life. The animals had taken her in and became her friends and family. She had suffered so much already, why would they make her go back?

I think the story was very good although a little strange. It was meant to make us think and to look at the situation with an open mind. Talking, fully dressed animals don’t really exist but the point was to show the reader a new world. The child was able to accept, fit in, and eventually love this world. It showed that if you are open-minded, new worlds may be possible to find.

Thinking Critically, Challenging Cultural Myths" challenges us to think critically. Telling us to be prepared for the vastly differences in high school and college. Columbo challenges us to put ourselves in an El Salvadoran person's place as he reads the title of a book "Rereading America" and reminds us that The United States is not the only country in North America and it is the arrogance of we in the United States who take it for granted that it is the only country in North America. Something of which I can say with pride that I am not guilty. The fact that people do not know what North America includes is evidence of the dubious quality of our education system.
Columbo's example of cultural myths was very profound in "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethk. Which to today's generation, and probably rightfully so sounds like a perverted, abusive situation, turns out to me to be quite a sweet memory a boy has of his father. It took some critical thinking on my part to get over the afore mentioned.