Professor Grady
Writing 1
31 October 2014
For School
In John Taylor Gatto’s essay, “Against School,” Gatto draws on his extensive experience as a teacher to argue that the American public education system does not exist to make students their personal best, but rather aims to create a large, manipulable work force incapable of challenging its government. This, he argues, is achieved by forcing authority on students from a young age, and then proceeding to breed each student for his or her specific role in society. While “Against School” does present an intriguing view of the modern education system, Gatto severely underestimates the value of the academic and social skills students learn by attending school. Furthermore, directly contradicting Gatto’s contention that school serves to oppress and integrate the American people, the introduction of mass schooling has actually led to one of the most protest heavy and innovative centuries in American history. In arguing that America’s “twelve-year wringer” is ineffective, Gatto claims that school forces kids to “learn, and do, foolish and boring things.” Forcing students to perform these tasks, he argues, functions solely so that “an elite group of caretakers” can diagnose and separate students into societal roles. This idea is meant to substantiate Gatto’s claim that schools do not exist to teach students anything useful, but rather to provide them with endless chores so that they can be easily manipulated later in life. However, Gatto completely neglects to consider the importance of the social skills and academic subjects taught in school. …show more content…
A student’s class is undeniably the central component in his or her social landscape. Students first learn how to connect and effectively communicate with human beings in the classroom when they are grouped together with other children their age. Almost every person’s best friends, social bonds, and romantic interests have been defined by socialization within the school he or she attended. Even homeschooled children regularly meet for outings and “play dates” in order to stimulate social development. The ability to interact, interview, and communicate with other people is important in countless aspects throughout life, especially employment, reproduction, and the sake of personal happiness. Thus, in grouping students together in an intimate setting, schools are teaching an invaluable lesson and a skill that students will use for the rest of their lives. Similarly, the academic material taught in school is important in creating more logical and innovative thinkers. Throughout his essay, Gatto points to important historical American figures who were never attended school and were self taught, namely Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln, to suggest that schooling is unnecessary to be successful. Nevertheless, it is obvious that, without a grasp on actual subject matter, none of these men would have achieved the things they did. Thomas Edison needed arithmetic and geometry for each of his 1,093 US patents, just Benjamin Franklin needed a strong understanding of physics to describe electricity and Abraham Lincoln required a mastery of English for his extraordinary rhetoric. However, in using these examples of self-taught men, Gatto only presents extreme cases of rare genius. Given a large enough population and an absence of formal education, as were the circumstances in eighteenth century America, chances are that some individuals will educate themselves to the level of genius. Take, for example, William Kamkwamba, who was born in a small rural village in Malawi, Africa and, at the age of fourteen in 2002, taught himself to build a windmill out of bicycle parts and scrapyard materials. It would be entirely inaccurate to assert that Kamkwamba represents the general population of Malawi, Africa, just as it is inaccurate to assert that men such as Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin represent the average American before formal schooling was instituted. Although Kamkwamba, Edison, and Lincoln were able to teach themselves the basic subject matter that allowed them to think so innovatively and …show more content…
Students burned draft cards and even protested Richard Nixon’s inauguration as president until they were forcibly dragged away or disbanded. These protests shaped the nation’s negative perception of the Vietnam War, forever a black mark on the American government. Once again, these students of the American education system were far from being “dumbed down and