Products of the School System

In my Comparative Education class we were told to read the article "Against School" by John Taylor Gatto, who taught for 30 years in New York and was once named New York City Teacher of the Year. It really made me think. It takes some time to read, but it's worth it. It can be found at:

www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm

Gatto argues that the current school system is designed to produce mild-mannered citizens who are obedient to the law. The purpose of education is to educate people so they can take on jobs that serve the larger social system and keep it running. As a result, boredom is prevalent in schools because children's natural curiosity is repressed, and consumer frenzy means that children never really mature as they become adults because they never need to commit to anything. The rich get richer while the poor get poorer, and the system is designed to keep things this way.

As I thought about this article, I looked at our society with a more objective point of view. Although all children are entitled to an education, school is designed to weed out those with little potential to serve the system and build up those who have that potential. Thus, from an early age many children are led to believe they are of lesser value than those who are "smarter", simply because they do not fit the mold society would like them to. Schools are designed to set these kids up for failure. Why is education the only measure of value in today's society? Why do we look down on those who are less "educated"? Who decides what is and isn't worth learning? Just because someone does not meet the standards of the system - to graduate from high school, to go to university, to get a good job and thus become a productive member of society - does not mean they are failures as human beings. The ironic thing is that we depend on these people to maintain the standard of life we are accustomed to while looking down on them all the while. Who are the people who work at Wal-Mart on Sundays, at McDonald's at midnight, and at the video store on Christmas Day? Those who we have discarded as being unambitious underachievers. Yet we sure appreciate it when we can have these services provided to us at our convenience. This is just part of the problem of our society, and the school system is a direct product of the society it serves. As aspiring teachers we need to be aware of these attitudes and practices, and strive to show our students that they are smart, capable human beings who can aspire to be who they want to be. Gatto says, "After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women."