Discussion of Gatto's "Against School"

Asides from the obvious appeal of the title, this essay has a lot to offer to someone who really reads it (which, apparently based on the quality of our schooling, could be a rare thing). It talks about the blatant ties between the Prussian and American school systems, about how our own school system was based on "an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens in order to render the populace 'manageable.'" It makes me wonder, though, those that fight the system (of school) and become their own, intelligent, people…where do they go on to? To be writers, like Gatto? Becuase they don't fit any of the other slots that society makes for everyone that comes out of school. Maybe they "turn to the dark side," (to continue with Gatto's own Star Wars comparison…) and are recruited by the government to run everyone else in the next generation. Maybe that's why the cycle of boredom continues--some people actually rig it so that it can continue. (This sounds so conspiracy theory, it's hard to go on.)

Anyway, he goes on to describe more about the Prussian (and therefore, American) system of education. He explains that public schooling, with all its systems of division (grading, separating the students into different years, etc.) is designed to keep “the people” (I can’t resist) from realizing they’re all being put down in different ways and coming together to end that.

I have to think out loud a bit (that is, on-line…) It seems we do a crazy good job of dividing ourselves, into cliques (I hate that word. I never knew how to say it. It still screws me up. At the least the i should be said like an e. If it’s a “click” why can’t they say it that way? Wait, is that how you say it? Shit…) based on how popular you are (which is loosely based on how you dress, or who you know), what grade your in, what you’re most interested in… And even in the general “middle class” there’s upper-middle, middle-middle, and lower-middle class. But I suppose that school can highlight those differences and make them more pronounced the longer children are kept in the systems.

The way he pulls in Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” act and relates the act to keeping children… well, children, isn’t only comical, but sort of relates to the whole conspiracy thing at the same time. School does not allow them to grow up, to become mature and intelligent adults that can participate productively in society and the governing of it. So power is kept in certain hands…

Along with this declaration about the truth of schooling, he points out that “if we wanted we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old, stupid structures and help kids take an education rather than merely receive a schooling”, something he says that he, and probably many other teachers, have recognized. So if they can, why don’t they? That must be the worst part of being an educator, being “trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children.” Maybe, as Gatto says, that’s the reason everyone’s so bored. Their natural brilliance isn’t allowed to shine, and they’ve been conditioned to believe it doesn’t even exist. Maybe…