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Benjamin Barber's Argument In 'America Skips School'

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Conner Stripling Lowe Paper 5 Why Benjamin Barber's Argument in "America Skips School" Trumps William Henry's Argument in "In Defense of Elitism" In today’s society, it has become the norm for adolescents to choose where they would like to go after they graduate, seeking further education. William Henry wrote, “In Defense of Elitism”, he argues that colleges are letting too many students in, and that some of the students that are in college do not really deserve to be there. He thinks that the reason for the dumbed down education system is because of letting in too many students that do not need to attend college. In “America Skips School”, by Benjamin Barber, he believes that the teachers of todays generation blame kids for the fall of …show more content…

Barber bases his egalitarian claims on evidence for the conventional American view. He uses history as proof that higher education is a necessity for all citizens recalling “Jefferson and Adams both understood that the Bill of Rights offered little protection in a nation without informed citizens. Once educated, however, a people was safe from even the subtlest tyrannies”(Barber 5). Barber understands the genuine purpose for educating a public and that it endows people “the competence to participate in democratic communities, the ability to think critically and act with deliberation in a pluralistic world, and the empathy to identify sufficiently with others and to live with them despite conflicts of interest and difference in character.221;(Barber 6). Barber’s claim is sound because it agrees with the noble ideals set by our founding fathers and can be applied universally as every country naturally wishes to have a peaceful and educated society. Barber uses logic in arguing for mass public education, quoting two of the most influential founders of our democracy, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Barber knows that in a democracy, the people decide what is best for the nation, and if the nation is uneducated they will make the wrong decisions. Jefferson and Adams warn about those “tyrannies” of an uneducated society, which is why Barbers claims are truthful that education allows people to “think critically and act with deliberation”(6). To answer the question of how a society achieves equality and opportunity for its citizens, one should totally disregard William A. Henry’s callous remarks and illegitimate claims in his essay, “In Defense of Elitism.” His reasoning for selective educational opportunities tries to divide our country, which will discriminate individuals, amplify class

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He also asks how America can remain a leading world power if parents are “ashamed” (48) of their children studying or reading political economists rather than dancing or playing baseball. These questions challenge the audience to work at finding an answer through changing their values and stopping the use of derogatory terms such as “nerd” and “geek” (3) to describe those who place a great emphasis on academics. Furthermore, they evoke a sense of nationalism by stating that the United States’ status as a world power may be at stake if society continues to discourage intellectuals, creating the desire to begin advocating for change and to create a higher emphasis on academics than athletics or social

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All Americans want their future generations to be well educated—at least, all Americans should. When it comes to the topic of education, critics attack it by claiming that there are issues with how our American students are being taught. Some believe that education is too focused in an argumentative culture and that environment narrows our perspective, while some argue that the issue is in the commercialization of our educational system. Collectively, educational value is destroyed. Authors Benjamin Barber, Deborah Tannen, and Gregory Mantsios all agree that our educational system is flawed.

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In the essay, “America Skips School”, Benjamin R. Barber states how he thinks education is not of great importance in America, and he gives advice on how to fix educational issues. He describes how Americans lack simple literacy skills, and says Americans do not truly value educating future generations. Barber says that the blame gets put upon the teachers for not teaching children the proper material, and often times the children themselves get blamed for not carrying the responsibility of the future properly. But Barber himself believes the true blame is children are mimicking society’s actions, and ignoring what they are taught in school. He says children don’t take education seriously because society shows them they can advance and become

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John Taylor Gatto addresses his belief in his article “Against School” that schools have become “laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands.” Students are bored of their teachers, teachers are bored of their students, “who, then, is to blame?” “We all are.” It is our duty as citizens in our society to make sure we are pushing and challenging ourselves every day instead of waiting for another to make it happen for us. The government has become routine enough to allow the few students they believe are capable to continue on their tradition, thus allowing the majority of students fall into useless stereotypes and groups.

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Both Laurence Steinberg’s “What’s Holding Back American Teenagers” and John Taylor Gatto in “Against School” present focused critiques on the broken American System. Although, both authors share a primary argument: the American school system is broken because students are not being challenged throughout their years in High School, they used different structures, and they supported their claim with different subarguments, in order to convince the students and parents, which are the main audience. However, the effect that the author's subargument is going to have in their reader is unknown. The fact that Steinberg used statistics to support his argument: that American schools are easy, make his argument even more stronger and more persuasive,

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The United States’ school system is based on compulsory education laws which required children from 6 to 16 years of age to assist public or private school, for a certain number of years (“Compulsory Education”, 2015). In the past, these laws were put in effect to increase literacy rates and to avoid child labor practice. Unfortunately, there are many people against mandatory public education in America. This is the case of a former New York City teacher, John Taylor Gatto, who in his article “Against School”, he expresses why he believes that the school system is ineffective in helping students to develop their full potential.

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In the article, “Anti-Intellectualism and the “Dumbing Down” of America” Ray Williams discusses the increasing trend of anti-intellectualism in American culture. There is an anti-intellectualism that exists in American culture that is the result of the unpopularity of being smart in High School, the lack of the importance of teachers in the U.S. compared to Japan and the effect of reality TV and pop culture. Williams indicates that one of the reasons that anti-intellectualism exists is that education in the United States is not as strong as it once was. Williams says, “After leading the world for decades in 24-34 year olds with university degrees, the U.S. is now in 12th place. The World Economic Forum ranked the U.S. at 52nd among 139 nations

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