In the article Against School, John Taylor Gatto conveys his firm conviction of how students are forced to conform to low-standard education in the typical public school system to benefit society much more than the students themselves, making schooling unnecessary as compared to education. Children are taught and forced to follow a bias education system, and a refusal to follow means failure. They are told that conforming to schooling means to be successful in life. Success is the achievement of a goal or objective. It is both a subjective and situational idea. Success does not depend on school because many people throughout history who have not attended or finished school have been successful. It is an idea geared to individual goals, and schools do not encourage critical thinking or creativity either.
Gatto explains that children usually did not go to high school throughout the American history, yet the unschooled rose to be great people like Farragut; inventors like Edison; industry captains, like Carnegie (Gatto, J. T. (2003), p. 34). Many people who never finished school and those who never even went to school have been proven successful throughout history. Children who are amenable to learning in school today are manipulated to think they have one path to success. Just as now, there were always kids considered to be low-life and lazy because they did not do or understand the work. What if that kind of education isn’t what they needed?
Success has individual meanings that are exclusive to one’s aspirations and goals. Gatto explains that in America, they have been taught to think of success as similar to, or at least reliant on schooling, but this is not true historically either in an intellectual or financial sense (Gatto, J. T. (2003), p. 34). Despite schools promoting a particular way of thinking, young adults aren’t prepared for life after school properly. Ambitious young adults are often overwhelmed by the little knowledge they have acquired, through their school career, for what their lives will turn into after graduation. Receiving a diploma does not automatically mean one is successful; it comes from dedication and primary education, which can only often be learned from experience. While formal schooling has many advantages, it does not guarantee success.
127 our experts are availableright now
The distinction between schooling and education has been lost in the present day. Schooling can get in the way of education. Schools do not promote critical thinking or innovation, as previously mentioned. Institutions only teach memorizing facts and preparing for standardized tests. All a person always teaches education. Getting an education means learning basics and general knowledge of a variety of topics. In his last paragraph, Gatto states, people must realize what their schools are: experimental laboratories on young minds, practice centers for the behaviors and a ttitudes demanded by corporate society. Compulsory education serves children incidentally only; their actual intention is to turn them into servants (Gatto, J. T. (2003), p. 38) Young adults passing through this system seek to be taught how to function in society as themselves, not what others are.
That does not mean going to school is how a person succeeds. With our society falling into the trap of modern schooling, without schooling, it is not easy to become successful. Even when deciding to pursue further education, through a college or university, one’s skill and acceptance are measured by their academic grades and test results, and also, by a board of people who were forced by this same gray brainwashing everybody is pushed into. Success is determined by oneself, not the completion of a biased system set to cause human failure.
Reference
- Gatto, J. T. (2003). Against school. Harper’s Magazine, 307(1840), 33-38. https://www.everettsd.org/cms/lib07/WA01920133/Centricity/Domain/947/ENG.Against%20school.pdf
