Whats Wrong With The American School System?
SkulkBait
Join Date: 2003-02-11 Member: 13423Members
Join Date: 2003-02-11 Member: 13423Members
<div class="IPBDescription">John Taylor Gatto tells all</div> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->John Taylor Gatto is a former New York City school teacher. During his 30-year career, he has taught at 5 different public schools, has had his teaching license suspended twice for insubordination, and was once covertly terminated while on medical leave. He has also won the New York City Teacher of the Year award three times and the New York State Teacher of the Year award once during the final year of his career. The whole time he has been an outspoken critic of the school system. Nine years after leaving his career, he published The Underground History of American Education, in which he puts forth his insider's vision of what is wrong with American schooling. His verdict is not what you'd expect: the school system cannot be fixed, Gatto asserts, because it has been designed not to educate. Skeptical? So was I." <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
--Ripped from the front page of <a href='http://www.slashdot.org' target='_blank'>slashdot</a>
The full text link is <a href='http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.htm' target='_blank'>here</a>. However, it is currently suffering from the slashdot effect. (also, it is not really the full text aparently, just one chapter a month from the book).
Also, the full slashdot review is <a href='http://books.slashdot.org/books/04/09/06/1722203.shtml?tid=146&tid=103&tid=6' target='_blank'>here</a>.
This guy also wrote an interesting article on the same subject in 1991: <a href='http://cantrip.org/gatto.html' target='_blank'>The Six Lesson School Teacher</a>
--Ripped from the front page of <a href='http://www.slashdot.org' target='_blank'>slashdot</a>
The full text link is <a href='http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.htm' target='_blank'>here</a>. However, it is currently suffering from the slashdot effect. (also, it is not really the full text aparently, just one chapter a month from the book).
Also, the full slashdot review is <a href='http://books.slashdot.org/books/04/09/06/1722203.shtml?tid=146&tid=103&tid=6' target='_blank'>here</a>.
This guy also wrote an interesting article on the same subject in 1991: <a href='http://cantrip.org/gatto.html' target='_blank'>The Six Lesson School Teacher</a>
Comments
Usually it's the latter with these kinds of things.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Over the course of the book, Gatto exposes many of the individuals, organizations, and crises (both real and manufactured) that helped to make our public school system what it is today. Such architects as Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, and a handful of teaching and management experts sought to benefit directly from a dumbed-down citizenry. Others contributed in a naive attempt at Utopian social engineering, mostly unaware of the harm that they were doing. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What caught my eye here, and no I haven't read the book, was that Ford (I assume Henry Ford) wanted a "dumbed-down citizenry" which implies that he along with the others wanted schools to do as little as possible. I did some research a few years ago for a paper on Ford and what I found was just the opposite. Sort of. IIRC, Ford disliked government run schools. In fact, Ford disliked government in general. Most of this was based on how he was self-taught for most of his education. But Ford spent a large chunck of his life and money trying to raise workers in his community up from poverty. Not push them down.
Based soley on that, I have to frown on this.
I remember hating so many things about high school; this article hits on those and some others I didn't even think about.
at least, that's how i see it. is gatto right? maybe.
is there something wrong with our school system? given that one in four students contemplate suicide, that as much as 10% of students use or have used drugs or alcohol, and that (insert a good percentage here) never goto college, i'd say so.
the purpose of schooling is to prepare kids for the real world, for when they're living by themselves and mommy's not buying them stuff anymore. it's supposed to make you smart, so that you may one day contribute back to humanity.
so why is it producing so many idiots?
most of the smart kids in my school didn't learn to appreciate fine art, literature, and politics from sitting in a class for 45 minutes while staring at a clock. they taught themselves. they were motivated, inspired by their role models or some event in their lives. people aren't born smart, asians don't have a Genious Gene, they have Nagging Parents. dumb people aren't Stupid, they're Lazy.
school forces knowledge down your throat, and if you're not emotionally ready to learn, you throw up. schools rarely help clean up the mess, and when they do, it comes in the form of help-tools, naive counselors or self-important teachers. why should a student who isn't even motivated enough to pass a class care enough to seek help, and risk even more shame and embarassment?
the problem with our schools is
1.) schools are plagued with the same problem many prisons are. besides the obvious, appropriately poetic parellels, schools too, are often plagued with the problem of overcrowding. in most of my classes, for example, there are about 30-40 kids, about five of which are closely acquainted with the teacher. only the most outgoing, motivated kids get the attention they need.
[ post cut short, it's 11:40 and i have to finish outlining this chapter for APUSH... ]