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Against School John Gatto Analysis

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In John Gatto’s essay “Against School”, he insists that modern schooling is crippling our kids. “I had more than enough reason to think of our schools – with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers – as virtual factories of childness.” (para 4). The US adopted its educational system from Prussian culture and it led to a downward spiral of boredom and fear in children. Children are singled out, judged, and never taught to be a grown up and be independent. After the Revolutionary War, the US adopted the worst feature of Prussian culture – their educational system. The Prussian educational system is “designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership …show more content…

The children are encouraged to be greedy, envious, jealous, and fearful. They are stripped of responsibility and independence. The kids grow older without growing up. Along with these traits come consequences for the children. They are taught to obey, be bored, and be employees and consumers. The children are “conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned.” (para 26). When these kids are put in front of these computers, phones, and TVs, they come across sites and ads telling them to buy things they don’t need to get the acceptance they so desire from their peers. This causes the children to become major consumers built on greed, envy, and jealousy. In conclusion, John Gatto’s essay “Against School” is highly against the current educational system in the US and also in many other places that follow the same format that the US has acquired from Prussian culture. Modern schooling is hurting children more than helping them by causing them to fight each other for social standing. It is a brainwash for children and we must teach them to be adventurous, think outside the box, be independent, and develop an inner life so that they will never be bored, even in

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