Reading Response #4

Recently I read an article by James Taylor Gatto entitled “Against School.” In this article Gatto talks much of his experiences and thoughts of the current school system. Gatto speaks from the lens of a veteran teacher in around the worst schools in Manhattan. Having been part of the school system for 30 years Gatto witnessed boredom, not only among the students (who blame the teachers) but also among the teachers (who blame the students). Gatto contends that this boredom is in part due to the rigid structure of the school system, making the children and the teachers alike follow a strict set of guidelines. I would have to agree with what Gatto is saying about how the school system has a certain knack for crushing people’s spirits, which is sad to say because instead of expanding people’s minds they’re ultimately turning off a lot of people to education that could possibly flourish in a less rigidly structured environment. Gatto recalls a time at one school where after taking medical leave he returned to no job and all records of his leave destroyed. He even lost his teaching license until someone who had witnessed the conspiracy against him actually testified of it. It seems not only closed minded but ultimately bad for our education system in the long run if this is how we treat teachers who are trying to break outside of the empty seeming school system that is and create a more engaging learning environment for our youth.

After recalling his personal experiences with the school system Gatto goes on to critique our schools emphasis on the three R’s, (Reading, wRiting , aRithmetic) noting that “The unschooled rose to be admirals like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry, like Carnegie and Margaret Mead,” which might invoke the thought, what are we really getting out of our so called educations? Do we really need to follow the rigid K-12 staircase to success? Obviously not, according to Gatto. Gatto then cites Inglis breaking down the purpose of school giving it six functions: Adjustive and Adaptive ,(fixing habits relating to authority) Integrating, (making children as alike as possible) Diagnostic, (determining each students social role) Differentiating, (sorting and training based on the social role) Selective, (a Darwinistic branding of “the unfit”) and the propaedeutic function (an elite group of caretakers will monitor and maintain the rest of the functions). Gatto says this is the role of the mandatory public education system. It’s a sad reality it seems that the government is pidgeon-holing us into becoming a mass of zombified consumers through the means of mandatory “education”. As horrifying as this outlook sounds, it to me doesn’t seem too far off. From my experience in the public education system there’s not much I can argue against it, and the enactment and continued support for the “No Child Left Behind” act only supports this argument. The NCLB act forces schools into a rigid structure, basing their funding on how well their students test on a very narrow curriculum (mainly math, english and science). With something like NCBL in place now it’s hard not to agree with Gatto and Inglis.