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Examples Of Oppression Within The Education System

1725 Words7 Pages

Kevin Guerra
Professor Orozco
English 101
15 January 2023
Internalized Oppression within the Education System
Is it time for our K-12 compulsory schooling education system in America to get an overhaul? The sentiment that this system is long overdue for restructuring is felt across the board of educators, instructors, administration, and communities. The current system does not work for our students anymore. However, why would this system work for students anyway? The initial design for our school system held the goal of producing factory workers and nothing more. The school system was not designed to create critical-thinking intellectuals but submissive proletariats. The very system responsible for teaching millions of children across the …show more content…

The original functions are allowing for an unfit system to continuously oppress our students in academia. Award-winning educator, John Taylor Gatto identifies the original functions of the school system and how they have harmed student populations rather than aid them in his work “Against School.” For instance, Gatto reveals, “The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. 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.” The school system’s adjective or adaptive function is primarily a tool in which the education system teaches students to respond to authority and become submissive to its power. With this response to authority, students are not encouraged to critically think or question systems in power. This lack of critical thinking helps the oppressor in subordinating student populations due to the fact that students are not being given the tools to think critically in general. However, why would a system give students the tools to think critically about itself? It is easier to oppress and keep the student population manageable when the education system indoctrinates them to fear …show more content…

Critics will support this argument with evidence that there are concrete institutions that are running perfectly fine with a steady student enrollment rate. If there was to be some sort of subordination or oppression at work why would these students even attend these institutions? However, what these critics fail to address is the hidden systemic issues present within the institution. There are internalized issues that are not easily seen. For instance, there are student-teacher relationships that perpetuate a subordinate relationship between teachers and students. This hostile relationship has allowed teachers to hinder the success of their student’s growth and development. Ultimately, these students are the victims of an oppressive institution that has not been able to address these types of relationships within

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