Against School

I gained a new perspective into our school system and structure after reading Against School by John Taylor Gatto. I understood very well the part about boredom in the classroom. I see how the structure of the school, classroom, and a standardized curriculum, could bore the student to death. Learning that we adopted a Prussian style of education system was a shock because I thought it came from England. I can see how the system is set up for mass public learning, and it has to be. Millions of kids every year must be given the basic skills for success. How this is accomplished is up for debate since we should never fall into complacency of the “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it” mentality, and the ideas of Inglis (156). His six basic functions of modern schooling are why kids are homeschooled. I do feel that Gatto’s data is out of date and the flaws are not near as extreme as he portrays them. There have been significant changes in the way and structure of how kids are taught today, even compared to when I graduated in the 90s. His warnings at the end about avoiding the tricks and traps of schooling are goods ones to follow.