Gatto Paper

Jess

9-4-07

John Taylor Gatto Paper

John Taylor Gatto argues in both of his writings, “The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher” and “Against School” that the education system today may not be the best choice for every adolescent. Class position, a part of the “hidden curriculum”, the second lesson taught by Gatto in the “The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher.” Starting right away in elementary school, we are placed into classes based on our level of intelligence. At the time, we were oblivious to what different class positions meant. When in reality, it was shaping our academic pathway. As we grew older, those class positions, for the most part , stuck. It wasn’t impossible to switch to a higher or lower level, it just wasn’t stressed. If you were in low math you stayed in that position. Gatto argues that the emphasize on numbering children creates for an unhealthy learning atmosphere and he states, “Numbering children is a big and very profitable undertaking, though what the strategy is designed to accomplish is elusive. I don’t even know why parents would , without a fight, allow it to be done to their kids.” Gatto designed his classroom around making the students enjoy learning no matter what class position they were. He made the dumb classes feel contempt with what they are but also envy the better classes. When he had the dumb classes envy the better classes it brought competition and encouraged them to move up in the hierarchy of classroom. No one should be 100% content with their class position, “The lesson of numbered classes is that everyone has a proper place in the pyramid and there is no way out of your class except by number magic. Failing that, you must stay where you are put,” said Socrates.

Another lesson taught by Mr. Gatto was intellectual dependency. This lesson carries throughout the world not only in the classroom but in our government as well. When Gatto talks about it in relevance to the classroom, he points out that we are taught to let people more educated make important decisions for us. In the classroom we don’t decide what we want to learn but what we are supposed to learn based on who pays the bills. Like Gatto said, “If I’m told that evolution is a fact instead of a theory, I transmit that as ordered, punishing deviants who resist what I have been told to tell them to think,” now the good student will go with that theory with little resistance but the bad kids fight it. Not to say that the bad kids are wrong in any sense but if the majority of bad kids want to succeed in this life, going with the majority makes the most sense. Intellectual dependency strives in the school system today. Without it many of us would be lost. Our government is another prime example where this intellectual dependency flourishes in everyday life. We depend on our president to declare wars, veto bills and make treaties. As citizens of the United States, we put our lives in the hands of people we don’t even know personally to make sure our nation runs smoothly. When Gatto said, “Think of what might fall apart if children weren’t trained to be dependent,” everything in this country whether it be prepared food industry or social services would fade away. Intellectual dependency was a major lesson Gatto taught and should be pointed out to classrooms around the nation.

The essay “Against School” points out that not all Americans need to be forced into schooling nine months a year. Gatto listed some great examples of famous Americans that never went through the public schooling. Take President George Washington for