The Rhetorical Analysis Of Against School By John Taylor Gatto

John Taylor Gatto, former New York City Teacher of the Year and author of “Against School: How public education cripples our kids, and why,” believes that forced schooling essentially molds young minds into society’s servants. Gatto begins his argument by drawing on his own experience as a teacher and the history of schooling. He then demonstrates how schools turn children into consumers. Despite the fact that he believes that public education cripples young minds, he concludes by offering a solution. Although Gatto argues his point well by bringing in personal experience, background history, and effects, he generalizes many points, lowering his credibility.

It became clear that in order to form a sound, functional democracy, education was most essential. Every citizen, although at the time only males could be citizens, needed to have some form of education. What was it that the citizen was to learn while in school? It became clear that education itself consisted of literacy, knowledge, research and the understanding of the Bill of Rights; those are what would make democracy succeed (Barber 416). Education as it was understood not only consisted of the basics, but also consisted of the government and rights. The importance of knowledge of government was not underestimated. He described the tuning point in education as the industrial revolution. Barber says “We have watch this commercialization and privatization, a distortion of the education mission and its content, going to the heart of our schools themselves.” (417). He is arguing that devices and television programs have become diluted with advertisements and that, with programs like Channel One, they have begun to affect education in schools. Tannen, on the other hand, argues that education and its present forms gained traction with the Greeks and continued through the middle ages. She tells how young men left home to attend institutions of higher learning. Through their experiences she says, “students at these institutions were trained not to discover the truth but to argue either side of

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

Tone is very complex and can sometimes be difficult to identify. After reading over John Gatto’s “Against School”, I got the sense that his tone was concerned, cautionary, and passionate. I felt that Gatto was concerned for the children in public school because they weren’t aware of how the school system was affecting them. Gatto’s tone was cautionary because he wanted to give warring and raise awareness to his readers about the school system and how it is running. His tone was passionate, because he once was a public-school teacher and he experienced and witnessed what truly goes on in the school systems and how it affects children. Gatto uses his tone to his advantage by his strong passion on what he is speaking on. He is really trying to relay this message to his audience that public school is not all what it seems. You can feel his concern and him wanting to inform his readers about the school system.

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

Answer: Gatto thinks school is boring because the teachers and students are bored with material. The students say they already know the material. I can compare my school experience to Gatto’s depiction of school. My experience in elementary was a breeze and easy. Then I entered secondary school and was shocked. I was shocked that I had nobody to hold my hand and tell me what to do. I was given assignments and dues dates. It was up to me to get them done in time. My teacher’s taught me with their opinion, I really

With this essay Gatto intends to get the proverbial wheels by changing the reader 's mind by presenting them his own view of the educational world.He argues that the public school system crippled children ,he writes on how schooling has made some non-useful changes in the past generation following the others. He touches base with what was the purpose of schooling and what effects it has on students and how they may benefit from schooling and also how it harms them in some way. He shares a great deal about his own experience of teaching and his student’s response; he also refers to some articles written on schooling by great authors.

Gatto’s ethos is rather strong, considering that he worked in the school system “for thirty years.” He has won many awards, as teacher of the year, both in New York City, in 1989, 1990, and 1991, and the entire state of New York, in 1991. He has many published works that were published in the years 1992, 2000, 2001, and 2008. His essay entitled Against School, was actually published in Harper’s magazine in the year 2003. During Gatto’s thirty years, he had taught in some of the “worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the

In his article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto satirically poses several questions concerning the purpose, structure, function, and need of the current educational system in the United States. Utilizing anecdotes from his thirty years of teaching experience and extensive research on the historical origins of many modern school customs to justify his tantalizing arguments, Gatto rhetorically inquires about the true motives and rationale behind an outdated institution system which continually steals more than a dozen years of precious life from millions of Americans in the pursuit of furthering a prejudicial class-separation bound together by conformity.

In “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto states that, “Boredom is a common condition for teachers and students.” The text questions if we really need forced schooling as a necessary part of our society. The text reads that schools are confining, restricted and do not promote a real education. A problem I have observed in the public schools, is the fact that all children do not learn in the same manner or at the same pace. There is no cookie cutter mold concerning education that all individuals can incorporate into. Standardized tests and curriculum in a one size fits all method is not an effective way for children to learn.

Consequently, the rational step taken is to deconsecrate schools into outwardly irreversible place of esteemed value of social order (Kozol, 3). He further noted many ways of opening the issue in complete observation of the class, which he believed can be attained by the quotation of many respected people’s word, such as Horace Mann who was diffident in articulating the real utility of public schools. Nonetheless, he also provided some other ways of embarking on this which he conscientiously noted that has exposed their conjecture of public schools as adults (Kozol, 4). Additionally, he said the best way of achieving this is by disseminating this purpose to students through dialogue as recommended by Doris Lessing (Kozol 4). Finally, he stated that there is no deceit of learning to be a responsive, affectionate or sympathetic person.