John Taylor Gatto Against School Summary

“Against School”

“Against School” is a controversial article written by John Taylor Gatto. In the essay he describes the American School system as a “prison” and talks about how it attempts to make all the children equal by teaching the students topics that society think is acceptable. He also goes on to state, “Students would be willing to study if they were more motivated and were actually educated instead of schooled”. Many people say that the only way to become successful now a days is to go to school and get an education. Now I agree with this statement but what I don’t agree with is how the school system teaches. Even though some might discredit Gatto’s claims that we should get rid of compulsory teaching because he think it’s a huge

waste of time, Gatto is actually right because without letting a grade determine how smart you are students would be able to self manage themselves, they wouldn’t get bored in class, and wouldn’t deal with the stress of worrying about test and homework.
Self-managing oneself is important to anyone. If we would allow students to manage themselves it would help them become more responsible because they don’t depend on teachers to tell them what to do. Self-managing also allows students to grow at there own pace and not at the pace of which the school wants to teach us in. Students would also be able to start learning about what career they want to get into at an early age as oppose to starting when you’re entering college. There are a lot of benefits to letting students manage themselves.
Some of the fears of self-managing are that students would get lazy and some might not even want an education.

Also if school wasn’t mandatory student education would be based on if the child would want to learn or not. Another con would be that at what age would a child determine if they want to educate themselves or not. These are some of the cons of self-managing, but overall it’s more of a positive outcome. If a student wants to learn he/she will do it. This of course would cause segregation but it’s not a bad type of segregation because now the student would have the power to change they’re life by educating

themselves.
Boredom is literally everywhere. If we were to get rid of compulsory schooling and allow self management students wouldn’t be bored. They would make it interesting for themselves. No forced schooling would allow students to have as much free time as they want. No schedules that treat them like inmates. No learning topics we don’t want to learn about. Yes these excuses might seem childish but they are legitimate reasons to why students get bored in class. ¬¬¬Students get bored when they’re learning something they have no interest in, when they just don’t feel like going to school, or when the teacher is boring. Speaking from personal experience when I get bored in class I either fall asleep or just mess around and ignore the lesson. Now I know no one ever said learning would be fun but when teachers make it more interactive with students it actually engages us and helps us learn by being a part of the class and not sitting back and sleeping.
Stress and anxiety are one of the worst feelings in the world.

Statistics show that 1 in 5 students qualify as clinically depressed meaning 20% of students are depressed. That’s a pretty big percentage of students that are depressed. Where does most of this stress come from? School of course. Six classes in a day, each teacher assigns homework, sometimes some teachers might not give homework but its still a huge amount of work. Then there’s test that can make or break your grade. All the studying they did for the test to try to pass it. Now imagine studying like crazy and failing a test that drops your grade from a 95 to a 90 or 85 percent. This brings kids down because all the homework they did to raise the grade just so it can drop down all because of a test. Students carry these burdens each day and at home parents make it worse at times and then some students even get part time jobs. The fact that they survive through all that is a miracle but how could we reduce the stress? You guessed right! By getting rid of compulsory teaching and allowing students to manage themselves. They wouldn’t worry about test, homework, or catching up on lessons they missed. They could take breaks whenever they felt like it or call it quits when they want. No hassles of running to class to not be tardy.

Gatto isn’t telling us to get rid of education he’s simply stating alternatives to gaining knowledge that could benefit children and give them more responsibility and freedom. Some parents might

be scared there children might not be anything without a schooled education but if you look back in history some of the most intelligent men in American history like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, and John D. Rockefeller didn’t get a schooled education. If these historic examples aren’t good enough there are also people like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates.
There shouldn’t be a law that forces students to get an education, that should be entirely upon the individual. Education should be something that is a person’s will not something that is forced. I believe its time we get away from this school system like prison, with fences that resembles cages, security that resemble jail guards, our detentions, and crappy food. Id rather be at home learning and figuring things out for my own. I want to know that I learned what I know by myself. Compulsory schooling doesn’t sound humane so I promote the idea of self-management and to abandon compulsory schooling once and for all.