Summary Of The School By Donald Barthelge

In the short story,“The Sanctuary of School,” by Lyndd Barry, the author uses characterization, the building of one’s personality and feelings, to create a central idea. The central idea that is supported in this short story is that home is not a place, it’s a feeling of love and safety. The writer of the story,“The Sanctuary of School,” proves the central idea that home is not a physical place but a feeling hope and protection, through characterization.

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.

The meaning of the word education is defined as an enlightening experience in which one receives or gives some form of systematic instruction. This definition is further facilitated through John Taylor Gatto’s utilization of the literary techniques pathos and logos within his own article Against School. While this specific work strives to describe what an ideal education would include, it also presents a more encapsulated view of how flawed some contemporary schools have become to this very day: using fifth column determination and other techniques to suppress student creative ability and efface motivation within students.

In Lynda Barry's essay “The Sanctuary of School” Barry gives her own personal feelings and experiences about the school system. She points out the fact that when times are “lean” the first things the government eliminates from the school systems is the art, music. and other creative programs. In her essay she gives her readers insight on her childhood, explaining how going to school was her get-away from her financially and emotionally unstable home. Barry points out how she and her brother weren’t noticed by their family while at home. For example, at the age of seven Barry sneaks out of the house while it was still dark because she feels a sudden urgency to get to school; when she gets close, she feels a sense of peace come over her. When

In “On Natural Death,” Thomas appeals to the readers by contemplating the subject of death with an academic approach that includes facts, data, and information. Thomas successfully transforms death from an awkward, emotional subject to a more comfortable intellectual one. This engages the readers by placing contemplation of death and dying within the confines of a more manageable and rational context. His gradual exhumation of death eases the audience into pondering the subject in the absence of emotional stress. The essay transitions from the death of an elm tree to that of a mouse. This is followed by Thomas giving a significant amount of attention to a scientific explanation of death, and then finally the description of the near death experience of a human. This use of an academic appeal moves the audience to a comfort zone with the subject of death and circumvents the common response of avoidance. The reader is simultaneously desensitized to the gravity of subject matter and given permission to consider death and dying without the normal societal negative stigma associated with the subject.

Within the poem “Schoolsville” by Billy Collins, the author describes his career as a teacher, highlighting the relationship with his students and how they have impacted him. Collins executes this through his creation of an imaginary town, intertwined with the reality of his profession and the real world. Through the frequent use of exaggerations, humorous imagery, and critical diction, Collins captures his weakening grasp on reality. The speaker captures himself in a dark moment where he realizes how detached he has become from his students and reveals his sense of hopelessness as a teacher.

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.

By biological logic, we human beings will face death sooner or later in our life and death has its very own ways to approach us - a sudden deadly strike, a critical sickness, a tragic accident, a prolonged endurance of brutal treatment, or just an aging biological end. To deal with the prospect of death come different passive or active reactions; some may be scared and anxious to see death, some try to run away from it, and some by their own choice make death come faster. But Viktor Frankl, through his work Man’s Search for Meaning, and Bryan Doyle; in his essay “His Last Game” show us choices to confront the death, bring it to our deepest feelings, meaningful satisfaction. To me, the spirit of the prisoners at deadly concentration camps, Frankl’s Logotherapy theory of “. . . striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.” (99), as well as the calmness of Doyle’s brother on his last ride, like an awaken bell, remind us of how precious life is, how we should find the significance in every act of living, determine to live a meaningful life at any circumstances; hence, when death comes, we can accept it without anxiety nor regrets.

In the short story “The School,” written by Donald Barthelme, many different literary devices are being utilize like order of events, phraseology, point of view etc. The literary device that stands out the most in the short story “The School” is point of view. Barthelme uses point of view by making the teacher the story teller which gives the story a different mood than it would if it was told from a distinct perspective. Point of view is a position or perspective from which something is considered or evaluated (Merriam-Webster, n.d.)Barthelme’s use of point of view leads to the interpretation of the story in a totally unusual way which makes the story much less creepy than it should be.

Regardless of race, caste, religion, or age, every human has wondered about the one fact of life that unifies us all: What is death? Both poems, “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” by Margaret Atwood and “Because I could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson share a common subject of death. Using figurative language, both poems illustrate distinct takes on a similar topic.

A goal is defined as, “the result or achievement toward which effort is directed; aim; end” according to dictionary.com. In high school, this is the most ambiguous word that every teacher uses. They don’t do this on purpose, they do it because administration expects to see them reach some type of goal over some type of time period, usually by whenever the next standardized test is set to be given. The text What High School Is, by Theodore R. Sizer, goes over much of what a “normal” day at the typical high school is like for student Mark, and why it should be changed for X and Y reasons. These days consist of doing what you are told by people “more educated” than yourself, seeing things in the way they want you to see them. In the text The Loss of Creature, by Walker Percy, he sets a huge emphasis on seeing things through

a) According to Barthelme, life gives the meaning of the fundamental datum which is taken for granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of. The author Barthelme uses the cliche of the death of the class pets and he also pushes beyond this to the death of trees, parents, and even classmates. He is implying that the children themselves are responsible for all the death. Edgar the teacher assumed the kids had sabotage the plants by overwatering and were careless. In addition, the meaning of life ties the story together nicely as it explains the continuation of life and death. In result, the classroom dynamic changed and taught the students something.

Donald Barthelme’s story, “The School,” takes on an untraditional way of explaining life and the meaning behind it. Donald Barthelme was an influential writer during the mid-1900’s and was an especially important part of flash fiction. Many of his stories were very short. His approach at writing enabled him to highlight his themes in an unusual way. He uses escalation to emphasize the deaths of plants and herbs going all the way to the death of people. Michael Byers, an assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, writes about “The School” saying, “curiosity, love, personal connection - all sources of solace in the face of death, and once that solace arrives, the dead world returns to life” (Byers). I agree with Byers that these things are sources of solace; however, I do not think Barthelme was trying to imply that after death we return to life. I believe Barthelme was trying to emphasize the meaning of life when answering the children’s question by saying, “life is that which gives meaning to life.” He was saying that death is a natural part of human life which exists all around us. Barthelme emphasized his theme of life by using the escalation of death throughout the story. I think Barthelme wanted readers to see that life and death are the basis for existence and that one cannot exist without the other; humor through escalation is brought into effect to create the harsh contrast of life versus death.

The two pieces I will be covering in this essay are “ I Just Sued the School System” and “Somewhere in America”. The first one consists of a man named Prince Ea who created this short movie/slam poem where he is in court and suing the school system for being unfair, cruel and old school. Prince backs up his ideas completely with examples in history. The other piece I am comparing is three girls, Belissa Escobedo, Rhiannon McGavin and Zariya Allen, who share their unspoken high school eperiences.