Against School

Oh my goodness! I really disliked John Gatto's, "Against School." I've never heard of anything so absurd about our schools. I will not argue that, as a whole, our national and local school systems are in need of some serious reconstruction. Our schools do not have the resources that are needed. We need more teachers and more qualified teachers, but our schools are not "meant to determine each student's proper social role." Gatto argued if we really need schools by giving the examples of Lincoln, Franklin, and etc who never had a type of "public" school. At that time only the priviledge even were able to learn to read and write. If having some kind of system that teaches all walks of life is not doing any good than why have we had a miraclous amounts of advancement since Lincoln's time. You can not tell me that all of our modern day advancements in science, medicine, technoloygy, and so on have all been created by the upper "social class," and that are all were made by those who made it beyond our so called differentiating function. Advancements have been made by all walks of life who were willing to work hard enough for their dream.
I enjoyed Mike Rose's "I Just Wanna Be Average" so much better than Gatto's essay. It was more entertaining and easier to read and I wanted to keep reading. Teachers, like the many who Rose incountered, are who have given teachers as a whole a bad name. There are a lot of bad teachers out there, however there are a lot of wonderful teachers who end up changing the lives of their students, just like Mr. MacFarland. Whenever you are around someone who is passionate about something whatever or whoever it may be it's contagious. When you come across a teacher who you just know loves what they are doing you can't help but enjoy what they are teaching you. Their excitement and enjoyment makes all the difference. I think the true tradegy of Rose's story is that his parents just trusted that 'the system" knew what it was doing, and with blind faith let their son be put in a vocational program where he didn't belong. I believe we all have to be our own advocates. When a doctor gives us a diganosis we shouldn't neccessarily take it as the final word just because he is the doctor. We need to also do some research and see if it makes sense to us. Who knows your body better than you do? Who has to live the consequences of being put in particular situation? All I know is that regardless of what those in positions who advise us say we are the ones who have to deal with the consequences, so we need to make sure it is the right solution for us.