Ethos And Logos In John Gatto Against School

Once in your lifetime, you may have questioned the purpose of everyday schooling; you may have even shown your hate for it. One person in particular took his hate for school to a new level. John Gatto was a school teacher, who absolutely hate the system. Against School is an essay he wrote expressing his hate for it. Against School shows what the school systems of late are about and how, as he says, it “cripples our kids” (Gatto). He used rhetoric, a form of persuasive communication, in order to support his argument and appeal to his audience. The most prominent forms of rhetoric that play a structural role in his essay include; ethos, pathos and logos. One of the rhetorical strategies that Gatto used in Against School is known as ethos. The word ethos is a Greek word, meaning character. This strategy refers to the credibility of the author or speaker. Ethos is most commonly expressed as personal experience, reputation and/or knowledge. Gatto used his personal experience as a teacher to express ethos. At his introductory paragraph, he started off by stating, “I …show more content…
Analogous to ethos, pathos is a Greek word meaning suffering or experience, depending on the situation. This rhetorical method is used to gain an emotional appeal, meaning appealing to not only emotion but to imagination. It is usually expressed in a point of view and/or a specific tone. The most prominent form of pathos in John Gatto’s Against School is his overall tone. Let’s just start with the fact he is angry with the school system. In multiple places in his essay, he writes about how school is dumbing the society down, essentially “factories in which raw products are to be shaped and fashioned…” (Cubberley in Public School Administration). In another place, his anger is directed towards modern economy, where he expresses that schools don’t make the next Albert Einstein, but your average