Difficulty Paper #3

John Taylor Gatto says in How public education cripples our kids, and why, that teachers and students are bored in the public schools. He says if you ask the students why they are bored, they would blame the teachers, and if you ask the teachers why they are bored, they would say it is because of the students. I agree with this. I was very bored in the public schools. I felt like teachers taught some predetermined curriculum that they were forced to teach. There was no imagination involved, and definitely no practical skills were gained. Gatto talks about something his grandfather said to him at age seven about boredom, which was “The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn’t know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible.” It is a person’s own responsibility to entertain oneself, and an important lesson to learn, for there may not always be someone around to take care of that for you. The difficulty I have with that statement is that these people should be avoided; what?! If this is an important lesson then shouldn’t we be teaching it, not avoiding the person who lacks those skills? He then goes on to talk about teaching that lesson to a few of his students during his thirty year teaching period. Maybe it’s just me, but that seems like a contradiction.

Gatto then talks about the history of our educational system, and how originally it was set up to educate citizens to participate within society. This is something that we all learn in elementary school when we learn about the Constitution, but we don’t learn how the system has evolved over the years to become a factory line that produces obedient, childlike, citizens that can be controlled. Gatto says that if people never grow up then they will never question the system, such as government and big business. He gives examples of events in history that show that our educational system moved toward a system similar to what was already being used in Prussia. I found this very interesting, and as shocking as Gatto did when he first learned this. Gatto states “But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens 11 in order to render the populace “manageable.”” When look back on my own experience in the public schools, I feel like I was an obedient drown after I left. Thankfully I can say that has changed over the years by continuing my own education and a little luck in the people that I have encountered in my life. But what about the people who were not so lucky?

Gatto Says it is the responsibility of parents to teach their children methods to counteract the teachings in the public schools, but I think that is unfair. Why should parents send their children to school at all if they hold all the responsibility for their children to learn? If this is the case than public schools would only serve the purpose of a giant daycare. Shouldn’t we be trying to change the system if it is faulty? I have read so many articles like this one and they all talk about how the system is flawed. But no one ever talks about how to fix it. I feel like all these teachers, rather than just writing about it, should do something. What have they done? Even if it failed shouldn’t the attempt for change be mentioned? I think so because it inspires people to keep trying. Maybe if all these writers of, how education fails our children, would get together then their joint effort could force a change. We can’t just give up on public schools and tell parents to fix their own children, for than the system has failed altogether and should just be disbanded entirely.