The years of my grade school education brings out the worst years of my learning experience. My schooling was full of teachers who doubted the students daily, administrators who thought they were better, and students who thought education ended with an high school diploma. In John Taylor Gatto’s “The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher” Gatto analyzes the school system that I have seen before my very eyes; a school system that without saying so, systemically sets children up to live under the law of the government. A system that trains children to obey and stay in the box that the system places them in. I attended Jr. high school at Sandtown middle in Atlanta Georgia, I don’t remember a teacher who was actually interested in teaching their …show more content…
Ms. Rouser and along with other teachers were angry that they spent years to get an education just to deal with kids for 8 hours a day and make a little amount of money with little resources to teach. Although these circumstances do not justify teachers shooting down students dreams. This gives me a better understanding on why teachers belittle the students into making them feel useless because they wanted us to end up just like them, unhappy. I attended Westlake high school in Atlanta, Georgia. In high school, everything was constantly changing. Classes changed every 45 minutes, teachers changed, subjects changed, and even the environment changed every single 45 minutes. This indifference that is showed in my high school is the same indifference that Gatto speaks of. The school system teaches children to not care about too much. When the bell rings this is suggesting that the things taught in class are not important showing that after the bell rings that no work is worth finishing. This mindset that nothing matters too much is totally opposite of the real world. Indifference is another drill that drills students in the opposite direction of the real world.
Up into college, students are told to ask for permission to use the restroom. In grade school I remember being told “no” to emptying out my bladder, something that is necessary and is unhealthy if held too long. This rule touches on one of Gatos “The Seven Lesson- Schoolteacher” which is is
In the article “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto, the author uses multiple rhetorical strategies in order to persuade the reader to agree that there is a serious problem with the public schooling system. Throughout the article he is able to appeal to the reader through his own personal stories and experiences that he had during his 30 years of teaching in schools throughout New York City. He points out major flaws in the public education, including how the purpose is not to educate; but instead make obedient citizens and to make all students equal. Gatto’s personal experiences and seemingly expert knowledge on the school system sets up the reader to be susceptible to his rhetorical strategies.
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.
Module 2 Response Assignment In John Gatto’s article, ‘Against School.” his central point is that the school system dumbs us down. He argues that having an education is not equal to schooling. That it’s standardized citizenry to reduce people to the same safe level, and it doesn’t let us think for ourselves.
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 the first journal of The Alternative, Galen Leonhardy journals his daily experiences as a teacher for an alternative school is Kozol Creek, Idaho. He describes the students in his classes and discusses his teaching methods to aid these students academically and socially, in order for them to transfer back into public life. The goals that he sets for himself regarding assisting the students are encountered by obstacles such as uncooperative colleagues and a local community that is ripe with preconceived stereotypes, poverty, and systematic neglect. The stark contrast between Leonhardy’s teaching methods and those of his unaccommodating coworkers reminds me of the disparity between some of the teachers that I had in middle school, some utilizing effective methods to encourage students and others employing unproductive methods of disparaging students.
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.
Before John Gatto begins discussing anything against school he uses ethos by stating that he has worked in this system for thirty years to establish that he is a reliable source in modern schooling. The first statement of the entire text is, “I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best” (114).Working thirty years in the schooling system is a long time to gain knowledge on its stability. Once he is established as a solid source on the topic he begins by discussing the environment children are taught in. John Gatto claims the teachers always had “low energy” and “dispirited attitudes” while teaching (Gatto 115). He tells of the boredom that takes place in each classroom from the students and teachers. He tells how kids believe what they are learning is “stupid” or “that it made no sense” (114). John Gatto appeals to us by stating the negative environment within schools. Everyone has been bored before, and can relate to the children. Gatto tells of his time as a student and states, “I found it futile to challenge the official notion that boredom and childishness were the natural state of affairs in the classroom” (115). If he finds it pointless to challenge this boredom and childishness in schools, then most likely
In his article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto submits his conspiratorial beliefs apropos the suggested chicanery and skulduggery present in American school systems to a wide range of audience members, ranging from concerned parents to the worldwide educational community. Throughout his article, Gatto calls into question several aspects of the modern education present in the United States, his scathing and unnervingly well reasoned timbre astonishing readers into reassessing their own experience in the education system. These appalling points, which one may at first believe only exist to steal the attention of any reader, are a key strategy in Gatto’s article which allow readers to set aside prior notions of skepticism towards educational
Instruction is a standout amongst the most effective and vital things throughout our life. In the present day, picking up information through training is a particular process that we need to experience with a specific end goal to have the capacity to make due in this world and to boost the potential that we have. One of the organizations, which give a training, a great domain, and devices to help understudy learn, are schools. In any case, as Gatto would see it, schools have made an extraordinary showing in transforming kids into kids. School gives a simple approach to take care of an issue and instructs understudies to obey reflexively.
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.
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
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
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 Gatto’s essay, “The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher” was very interesting to read. Right away I was able to recognize his ironic and sarcastic tone. His essay gives sign not only to modern education but also modern society and what we build our lives upon. Gatto writing made me think beyond what I normally would and opened my eyes to more faults within our education system that I never realized.
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.