Analysis Of The Prussian Education System

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Most high school students can 't wait for their school year to be over because they feel exhausted by the seven long periods of classes and not to mention boredom. John Taylor Gatto, a former New York State Teacher of the Year wrote an article called "Against School." Gatto criticizes the school system for their inability to meet the students’ expectations and for putting limits on their ability to learn. The children feel neglected, and the teachers feel helpless because they have to work with students who are not interested in the materials they are given. Gatto mentions how US high schools have become affected by adapting to the Prussian education system. According to Gatto, the purpose of high school is to manipulate the student 's mind …show more content…

Conant is responsible for having most of the Prussian education system in most of US high schools like the nine months of school years, and the attendance of thousands of students that go to the same high school (Gatto 36). The Prussian’s system wanted to manipulate a person’s abilities to favor the government, to damage the students’ critical thinking by implying their own standard to create a governable society (Gatto 36). The standardized testing leaves students who didn’t have a good score in the test to be placed in low-level classes. Gatto says that government 's purpose is to assign a group of people to complete the mission of watching over and controlling a society whose expectations are low so that the government can lead without being challenged or questioned (37). In that case, parents and teachers should work together to encourage every student to do their best to not let the government put a hold on their dreams and …show more content…

According to Gatto, "School are meant to tag the unfit-with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments" (37). As an example, schools let students who had poor grades throughout the year to pass the grade only by going to summer school. I have a friend whose dreams were shattered thanks to the system we have now. Andrea 's eleventh-grade year was very difficult for her because her mother died at the beginning of the school year. She struggled with depression, and after being in honor classes for the past three years, she started to struggle with her classes. When she reached twelfth grade because of her low performance in her junior year, she was put in medium level classes. She felt discouraged and she did only what she needed to do to graduate. One of the consequences was that she lost her opportunity to get a scholarship to a university that she always dreamed of going to. I want to ask the school board and teachers, why wait so long to bring attention to a student 's bad grades instead of warning your students at the start of their failing grades? The school system should focus on students like Andrea to provide counseling support to help them cope with their personal problems. Teachers should be working with the parents and those specific students to give them a wake-up call to help them get back on track as soon as

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