Does Anyone Really Need School?

Amidst his essay, “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto conceptualizes that our academic facilities are designed as laboratories with sole purpose of producing uniformed consumers and stationary victims through compulsory schooling. A way of cyphering through the breeding grounds of our population and plucking the most desirable of species whom are pre-selected for specific positions. Moreover, insuring that our industrialization is grown through our children’s forced intellect. Ultimately, connecting Gatto to the concept that we should determine our education within ourselves, and not the one that was institutionalized upon us.

In his article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto criticizes America’s system of schooling children, arguing that the whole system is bad and unfixable. In the majority of the essay Gatto relies on personal anecdotes, historical examples that do not correspond with modern day society, and bold unsubstantiated claims. Due to this, instead of convincing parents to take their children out of school and rethink our societies schooling structure, he just leaves the reader confused over what the problems he’s criticizing truly are.

In the attempt to persuade his readers in “Against School: How public education cripples our kids, and why”, John Gatto relied on his passion for education to express his thoughts. Having a bad experience as a teacher in our current school system, he believes that our system isn’t what it should be. He believes that our kids aren’t being educated. With the use of frequent rhetorical questions, personal experiences, and an appeal to ethos using other respectable men’s work, Gatto clarified his points about our schools in the America.

John Gatto’s “Against School” is a persuasive essay arguing both the ineffectiveness and negative outcomes of today’s public school system. Not only does Gatto provide credibility with his experience as a teacher, but he also presents historical evidence that suggests that the public school system is an outdated structure, originally meant to dumb down students as well as program them to be obedient pawns in society. Fact and authority alone do not supplement his argument. Gatto also uses emotional appeals, such as fear and doubt, to tear down the reader’s trust in the schooling system. Although it may seem to be so, Gatto’s argument is not one sided. He also offers suggestions to make the educational system more efficient at the hands of

Mandatory, enforced schooling is common all over the world, and is generally seen as a public good, and a privilege of first world countries. However, author and teacher John Gatto argues that mandatory schooling destroys your ability to be free thinkers and therefore should not exist, in his piece “Against School”. Despite his effective use of ethos, Gatto’s argument fails to be convincing due to logical fallacies, and a lack of evidence or first hand experience.

Let’s do away with the school system. In “Against school, John Taylor Gatto says, “They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said that they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around” (Gatto 608). Gatto uses his article “Against School” to talk about how the school system is not necessary. He uses certain rhetorical strategies and personal experiences to do so. In “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto uses his personal experience in his thirty years of working in the school system and some rhetorical strategies to convince people who have children in the public-school system that kids do not need to be put in the system to have an education.

In the essay, Against School, John Taylor Gatto, expresses his strong belief in middle diction of how students in the typical public schooling system are conformed to low-standard education in order to benefit the society much more than the student themselves; causing schooling to be unnecessary as opposed to education . He believes that children and teachers are caught in extreme boredom as a result of repeated material. This boredom also causes a lack of maturity and independence in the students. Gatto wrote this essay in 2003 which appeared in Harper’s magazine. He gathered these observations during his 30 years of teaching in the best and worst schools of New York City. In 1991, he was named the

Education means something different for everyone. According to Mike Rose, “a good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it” (33). The truth to this is that education affects us in every aspect of our lives. Rose emphasizes the value in the experience of education beyond the value of education for the purpose of custom or intelligence; he explores the purpose of going to school in terms of how he defines himself and his personal growth in the stages of his academic career. In Rose’s exploration of the purpose of school, he also reflects on his personal experiences and how those experiences gave him tools that are applicable to his daily life. Mike Rose’s Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us persuades his audience of the importance of education beyond the classroom, emphasizing how those experiences become crucial to one’s personal growth and potential.

Many are quick to disregard education’s role outside of the classroom. According to Mike Rose, “a good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it” (Rose 33). Rose emphasizes the value in the experience of education beyond the value of education for the purpose of custom or intelligence; he explores the purpose of going to school in terms of how he defines himself and his personal growth in the stages of his academic career. By reflecting on his personal experiences and how those gave him the tools applicable to his daily life, he emphasizes why education should never be overlooked. Rose’s use of referencing relatable experiences in a logical manner makes his argument persuasive to the readers and he succeeds in making the readers reconsider why education matters to them. Mike Rose’s Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us effectively persuades his audience of the importance of education beyond the classroom, which proves true in our everyday lives because the essential aspect of education is what we do with it and how it helps develop one’s personal growth.

The essay ‘Against the school’ by John Taylor Gatto draws our attention on to all the cons of attending twelve years of high-school. Gatto has experience in teaching profession for twenty-six years in schools of Manhattan, he shares from his experience that he majored in boredom and could see that everywhere around him. He also points out the initial reason why schools came into existence and what the purpose it fulfils now. He also educates us on the fact that all the great discoverers never attended school and were self-educated.The main idea Gatto addresses in his article are that public schooling is doing the youth an injustice.He implies that the purpose of schooling, now is to turn children into good employes and someone who follows orders.

John Taylor Gatto, who was a teacher at the public school for twenty-six years, and the writer of the essay “Against School” that first appeared in Harper’s magazine in 2001, censures the American Educational System in his argumentative essay. Gatto argues that the demands of schooling are essential problems. Gatto shows some positive examples, and models of the ‘success without forced modern schooling’, and he insists that historically forced schooling is not related to intellectual and financial success. James Bryant Conant encourages reader has interests in modern schools, which is the result of the ‘industrial revolution in nineteenth-century’. Moreover, Alexander Inglis’s study of modern schooling in the Gatto’s essay supports and helps the idea of John Gatto’s writing. Gatto develops his idea compared with “schooling” and “educating” based on personal teacher experiences, and demonstrates why the American Educational System needs a better solution, which is “educating” for a bright future to children, and descendants.

“Here it comes. I’ve studied for hours. I am going to ace this!” These are the thoughts that ran through young Manda Bartlett’s mind every time a test was placed on the desk. Though I knew the material, though I studied countless hours, there were some things that just would not stick in my mind. Are high test scores an indication of someone who is well-educated? Does making a “c” on a test that covered over nine months of school material mean that I’m not smart? Or is it because I chose not to go straight to college after high school that makes me seem so “dim”? Is graduating from an Ivy League college what makes someone a well-educated individual? Is a successful CEO well-educated because he’s successful or is it because he graduated at the top of his class from community college? Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple dropped out of college, is he uneducated? Does memorizing the words of Shakespeare make someone well-educated, or are they just good at remembering what they’ve read? Being well educated should be based on how far knowledge that has been gained is pushed throughout life.

Gatto explains how the school system turns our kids into servants, teaches them NOT to think, and keeps them from growing up, a condition that has affected all of society. At the end of the article, Gatto encourages us to challenge our children with solitude, provide them with grown-up material, to teach them to think critically and independently, and to be leaders and adventurers. These things and more, he says, will help our children become well educated and keep them from becoming the bored, childish, servants that the school system is designed to make them.

In accordance to Dr King’s statement, I believe that an educated individual is someone who is intelligent with commendable attitudes. How many times have we met or known someone who is very smart but does not have good reputation? It is indeed insufficient to only nourish our mind, because additionally, we consist of body and soul. We could feed our body with nutritious food, but we mostly feed our mind and soul (character) at academic institution. That is why choosing the right place for our education is crucial to our proper development.

When I was younger, education was integrated into every part of my life. Even as I’m taking college classes now, school is still a priority. Today, society tells us that being well-educated is necessary. If you want to be successful and if you want to matter, you have to be well-educated. Society has used tools such as IQ tests, standardized tests in multiple levels of education, and set learning standards. However, education goes beyond statistics and rulings. A basic, universal truth of humanity is that everyone is different. However, society has such a skewered view of education that their demand is of a specific kind. Although the definition of being "well-educated" is dictated by tools such as test scores, society should look at a person 's overall intellectual evidence before judging their level of education.