Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Methods and strategies of teaching reading comprehension
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
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
Botstein begins his essay by listing examples to assert that the American high school is obsolete. He describes high school as if to someone who knows nothing about it, so as to better expose the failings of the institution. Current or former high-schoolers remember the team sport culture, but might not realize its harm without Botstein’s detached and somewhat analytical description.
Gatto begins his article by explaining that boredom is an everyday issue in modern schooling. Teachers struggle with boredom due to the attitudes and behavior of students and find it exhausting to teach kids when they behave in an immature manner. However, students also become frustrated with the repetition of useless information, as well as being forced to fit society’s standards. Gatto shifts the focus to his thoughts on the importance of mandatory schooling. He thinks that the lengthy school days are completely unnecessary. There are homeschoolers who go without the eight-hour school days and become just as successful as others. For example, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln- who are historical icons- received little to no schooling at all. Mandatory school attendance did not become important until the early 1900s when James Bryant Conant, who was a poison gas specialist in Prussia during
From the beginning of high school, students strap on their seatbelts and prepare for one of the most vigorous races of their lives – becoming successful. With the rare occurrence of a break, kids are expected to keep on driving as fast and as powerfully as they can in order to get into a “great” college, which would be followed by graduate school and then an actual job that would make a lot of money. In American society, common values include working hard, determination, and being so productive that free time is not even a question. However, this philosophy is taking a major toll on American college and high school students. For at least 40 years, America’s future has been steadily growing unmotivated, tired, and hopeless due to the overemphasis on performing well in school. This phenomenon is appropriately expounded in William Zinsser’s “College Pressures”, which takes a look at the top four sources of tension that cause these feelings of dejection and agitation. After reading this article, I came up with a few solutions to this national problem. It is time to switch the harsh, over-encouraging green light of education to a comfortable yellow one. In order to make this ideal transition, directors of education across the country need to primarily reduce the amount of out-of-class assignments, lighten the grading system, and incorporate days in the school year that allow students to express their thoughts about school and provide useful feedback.
John Taylor Gatto in his essay “Against School” explains the lack of motivation that students have to the educational system of the USA. He also explains the damage that the system makes to both, students and teachers, by the non-interesting topics they are taught class. Furthermore, he enlightens the indifference of students towards the teacher, seem as incompetent and unprepared. In addition, he also highlights the dark side of the school system which intends to brainwash and rescind the ideas from students. He addresses a main goal of the educational system; convert juveniles into the next docile and manageable generation. Wherefore, he proposes an educational system that should be structured and not controlled. In addition,
The average human would think that going to school and getting an education are the two key items needed to make it in life. Another common belief is, the higher someone goes with their education, the more successful they ought to be. Some may even question if school really makes anyone smarter or not. In order to analyze it, there needs to be recognition of ethos, which is the writer 's appeal to their own credibility, followed by pathos that appeals to the writer’s mind and emotions, and lastly, logos that is a writer’s appeal to logical reasoning. While using the three appeals, I will be analyzing “Against School” an essay written by John Taylor Gatto that gives a glimpse of what modern day schooling is like, and if it actually help kids
John Taylor Gatto, who was a teacher at the public school for twenty-six years, and the writer of the essay “Against School” that first appeared in Harper’s magazine in 2001, censures and blames the American public school’s educational system in his argumentative essay with various convincible supporting ideas. Gatto argues that the demands of public education system’s schooling are essential problems in “Against School”. Gatto shows some positive examples of the educating without forced schooling and shows models of the ‘success without forced modern schooling’. Indeed, the writer insists that historically forced schooling is not related to intellectual and financial success in American history. James Bryant Conant, who was the twenty-third
If deciding to hold back a child for not successfully completing their grade, it would result in low self - esteem, hinderance and humiliation, nada problem child. As a result of this child becoming a hinderance, gaining low self - esteem, and becoming a problem child. Reach out out and help these students that are struggling and are being left behind. Help them to understand what's happening better. Make these children feel as if they are the future, and they are not a hinderance nor a problem child. Help these children to gain something they lost, their self - esteem along with courage, pride, and mainly confidence.
We live in a society where we are surrounded by people telling us that school/education and being educated is the only way to succeed. However, the school system is not up to the standards we want it to uphold. There are three issues we discuss the most which are the government, the student, and the teacher. In John Taylor Gatto 's essay “Against School”, we see the inside perspective of the educational system from the view of a teacher. In “I Just Wanna Be Average”, an essay written by Mike Rose, we hear a student 's experience of being in a vocational class in the lower level class in the educational system when he was supposed to be in the higher class. Both Gatto and Rose give their opinions on how the educational system is falling apart. Today the government is only trying to get students to pass, making it hard for teachers to teach what they want. Students are affected everyday by the school system. They sit there - bored - and do not think that the teachers care, making the
Ultimately, what is at stake here is the fact that parents are making excuses for students who do not want to work hard in school or are not able to handle it, therefore, parents need to stop making excuses for adults and let them decide their paths in life. If parents stop excusing their kids, then teachers can continue the challenging work for student resilience to increase. College is a privilege, not every child in the world can experience and no one said it would be easy, but no one said it was acceptable to hold each student’s hand for the ride
In his essay “Against School,” John Taylor Gatto illustrates his view point that the American population would be better off by managing their own education. He compares the school system to the concept of boredom; that students as well as teachers are victims of the long ago adopted Prussian educational system: “We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simply and glorious. Let them manage themselves.” In other words, Gatto believes that the main reason for the existence of schooling consists in that it trains our children to be obedient citizens who can’t think on their own. His point is that as a society we cut off the intelligence and creativity
The United States education system would look quite different without the ideas brought to America by the German immigrants. Germany’s influence can be traced back to the beginning of our country. Their impact goes back to the first German settlement in 1608 at Jamestown, Pennsylvania. German immigrants to Colonial America brought with them their culture, traditions, and philosophy about education. Much of the formal education system currently in place in the United States has their roots in Germany. The German immigrants are responsible for the first kindergarten in America, introducing both physical and vocational education, and establishing a universal education for all students. They also had a strong impact on the beginning of universities in our country. The German people were deeply religious. These religious beliefs carried over into our new schools as our nation was formed. As far back as the 1700’s, the school was an avenue to establish superiority over other nationalities. This paper will investigate the influence that German immigrants have had on American education during the time when America was being colonized and onto later years . This paper will also examine how our modern education system has roots from the early German schools. It is my thesis that our modern education system has been strongly influenced by the German people that immigrated to America.
In John Gatto’s essay “Against Schools” he states from experience as a school teacher that are current educational system is at fault (148). He claims that classrooms are often filled with boredom manufactured by repetitive class work and unenthusiastic teachings. Students are not actively engaged and challenged by their work and more often than not they have either already covered t...
I has been said many times that administrators need to change something within the education system for future generations. The only question is what do they change? In his article Leon Botstein states that “the American high school is obsolete and should be abolished.” High schools today should accommodate to each child's unique learning abilities. The children are not properly educated in the ways of adulthood and how the world works. Students nowadays do not care about their education; they only care about how well they fit in.
Do you know someone who is failing a grade? When a student fails a grade, usually said student repeats the grade, or goes to summer school. When a student does neither of these options, school becomes more difficult, and harder to keep up with. In this essay, This essay is going to talk about the stress levels of children after repeating a grade, social skill improvement, and learning advancements, because holding kids back is a good idea.
Grade retention seems like a reasonable solution to a serious problem. A child is significantly behind their peers, maybe they are emotionally immature, or they cannot quite grasp what is being taught to them. The first thing to do is make sure the child does not have a learning disability, after that, it is determined that since this child is falling so far behind there is no other option than to hold them back a grade. This will ensure that they have time to catch up with their classmates and move on to have a successful school career. Schools implement this every year, despite the research proving how unsuccessful grade retention is. There is no clear cut way to help a struggling child. Children learn in such diverse ways. It is a challenge to help someone falling behind, it takes time, effort and research to realize what is going to be effective for a struggling student. Grade retention is harmful to the student, it negatively impacts the child’s academics, it leads to early dropout, their self-esteem suffers, and it is not a cost effective way to help a child succeed.