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Against School John Taylor Gatto Summary

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What is school really trying to do with our lives? The article “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto is an article that talks about the problem of schools and how the goals are not what they say they are. First. the author talks about how the school system creates boredom and what could be done to fix it. He then talks about how school is not needed in its required class times, what the schools say the goals are for the students, and where our school system originated from. Next, he talks about who helped create the system we use today, and what the goals are for the schools in 6 functions. Finally, he talked about how the schools teach students to perform certain tasks in the future, how mandatory schooling made students not think about what
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667 Words | 3 Pages

The essay intends to persuade and provoke the reader. By using non-statistical based evidence Gatto manages to build a solid case for their being problems with the education system, however, his solution to these problems is incredibly lackluster. The solution Gatto presents is simply for the reader to teach their own children, rather than have them schooled. The problem with this is that this solution will only ever apply to people who read Gatto’s essay, it fixes none of the problems with the education system. The lackluster solution is even more sad since Gatto presents good evidence that the issues are systemic, and by ignoring a potential solution the essay reads more like a consumer warning than a serious treatise on the education

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436 Words | 2 Pages

In “here I stand”, Erica Goldson encourages change in the American schooling system. Erica points out a lot of flaws in the schooling system. No one is learning to learn, everyone is learning to graduate. People aren’t studying in order to learn more, people are studying in order to get through school faster. School puts down the creativity located in each and every one of us.

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1022 Words | 5 Pages

Furthering his argument that school isn't needed for success , Gatto states “ George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were not products of a school system, and none of these men graduated from a secondary school.” Gatto wants the readers to understand that these are well known Americans who are still highly talked about till this day but have succeeded without a 12 year schooling method that we use in this modern day. Gatto brings up an eye opener with these six functions of modern schooling stating “The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

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360 Words | 2 Pages

Gatton believes that The point Gatto argument begin to emerge is that students are getting borned in school easily and also are the teachers. He talks about how Then he started to question “Do we really need school”? On page 684.Then he goes on to talk about how school is five days a week and nine months and twelve years. He talks about how students are not really learning they are just inputting information and then outputting it back to the teaches which is not learning. Gatto even goes on to mention a few famous people that did not go through the schooling system such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln,Thomas Jefferson.

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756 Words | 4 Pages

Even from an early age they were raised to think and breathe in a certain way, and school was no longer about “learning.” Clarisse describes school as, “An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don’t;” (29). This really shows a good description of what school is like in the dystopian world. It shows how the government, he main management of these schools, wants their society and future generations to participate in activities where learning and receiving knowledge does not exist. Meanwhile those children are growing, their minds also becomes more empty.

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782 Words | 4 Pages

Horace Mann’s idea of education being the great equalizer is a myth. Education only depends on race and your financial status. Education teaches limited skills and everyone gets where they are based on their own caliber. There were no public school systems before the 19th century. That should make people realize how much education has limited us these past centuries.

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753 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout his essay, he is consistently trying to convince/persuade us to reject public school as a whole while taking control of our kids education. He states that “school trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers”(Gatto). He wants parents to take the lead in helping their children become as great as they can be, they can work a job that may have not been invented yet. Gatto is trying to prove that school doesn’t do anything for children. He then proceeds to give a list of people who didn’t go to school yet they in time became successful, such as: Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington,

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599 Words | 3 Pages

The Game of School: Why We All Play It, How It Hurts Kids, and What It Will Take to Change It by Robert L. Fried is a great tool for identifying challenges in school systems and planning school reform. This book explains in great depth the problems faced by students and educators in schools today and ends with a call to action for solving these problems. Some major concepts that arise frequently throughout the book are time being wasted, students feeling powerless and the prioritization of test scores over authentic learning. Time is wasted by everyone in school and is wasted in various ways, for example students are given busy work and teachers rush through a curriculum while students learn nothing. Students, while they are the most important stakeholders, feel as though they have no control over their education.

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441 Words | 2 Pages

Novelist, John Taylor Gatto, in his speech essay, “Why Schools Don’t Education”, conveys schools aren’t as educational as they should be. John’s purpose is to narrate the idea that teachers and school district aren’t putting enough effort to educate children and to also motivate more teachers to help bust up children’s education. He adopts a passionate tone in order to appeal in his that education should be taken serious. In order, to convey his appeal of the subject he uses rhetorical analysis to help drill in the audience.

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The article continued to mention that schools are a form of social control. Schools give children a place to be and are thought how to

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832 Words | 4 Pages

Schooling for the students Schooling systems have been the same since anyone could remember. What might need to change for students to get the equal amount of education as the “gifted” students? Will students still benefit from the lack of renewal in the education system? According to the authors from chapter 4 "How We Learn" Alfie Kohn, John Taylor Gatto, Bell Hooks, and Kristina Rizga, explaining in their essays published in "Acting Out Culture" by James S. Miller.

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1011 Words | 5 Pages

In the “Against Schools” article, author John Gatto describes the modern day schooling system and its flaws. He uses several rhetorical strategies in trying to prove his point. He successfully uses all three types of rhetoric in writing this article, which includes ethos, pathos, and logos. He establishes these strategies very early, and often throughout the article. He believes one issues with today’s schooling system is boredom, and that there is a distinct difference between what it means to be educated and schooled.

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953 Words | 4 Pages

People dream of freedom. A freedom that can bestow opportunities, a freedom that can establish equality, and a freedom that can promote success—people dream of the American dream. Many pursue it believing that education is the primary pathway to achieving success, and through education and hard work they can lower barriers; thus, being capable of scaling upward in the social ladder. Sadly, this dream has been tainted by myths that are associated with education. For example, some people claim that education is the grand equalizer of society, so through proper schooling everyone has the same chance of move up the social ladder.

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646 Words | 3 Pages

Many people think that most American schools are satisfactory. That is far from what is actually happening. The harsh reality is that schools that are unsatisfactory do exist. In Jonathan Kozol’s “Fremont High School”, he points out the flaws of a high school located somewhere in Los Angeles. This helps shine light on differences in the quality of education in various areas of the country.

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1580 Words | 7 Pages

Imagine the United States in its near future: while a select few successful, affluent and influential people take power over the rest of the country and essentially control the way it operates domestically and internationally, the remainder of the population remains at a state comparable to the Great Depression in the 1930s, where unemployment rates are high, few unskilled jobs are available to the public, and the majority of urban residents are forced to rely on soup kitchens and live in shantytowns. The state of most United States schools today is absolutely atrocious, and should they continue to educate the modern generation of children and teens, a dystopian society is bound to arise in what is now considered one of the most powerful and

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