Essay #2- First Draft

Why do we need school? Why do we have to learn about so many different subjects in school? Will these subjects really be beneficial when we grow up to be whatever we are destined to be when we are older? Will it help us with our majors in college? But most of all, is that really the point of school? I can tell you right now, I do not remember what I learned in my 3rd grade history class, or my 5th grade science class, so what was really the point of it all? Was it all a complete waste of time for all of us, and maybe money for some of us who went to private schools? Was going to a school for a good portion of our lives just implemented so our parents could have some time to themselves for seven hours a day, five days a week? From the day we are born, education is in our future, no matter the quality or quantity, we are born with intentions set out for us to go to school and learn something, anything. An education that will hopefully have some sort of impact on us, even if it is just instilling good morals, nevertheless, does school automatically mean, educated?
In Gatto’s, “Against School,” he really opens up the floor for a questioning of something that I’m going to assume, most people don’t necessarily think to question. Gatto claims that the rigorous twelve years of school are not as important as we may think them to be, and I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, I agree, is twelve years of the same old repetitive classes just at a different level too much? Have we already taken as much as we can get from those classes at a certain point? When does it become repetitive? When do we begin to memorize the necessary information to pass the class only using our short term memory, only to forget it all almost immediately after we have been tested on it? But on the other hand, I must say that I felt well prepared to move on to the next level of each grade. And as much as we were more concerned with when recess was or lunch, something must have stuck with us to a point that we feel it necessary to continue to send our children to the same educators that we were sent too.
Gatto uses history to back up his idea that “school” not education, may not be necessary, stating that if people like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, to name a few, did not attend what we know as school, yet still managed to impact us as they did, then why aren’t we expect to do the same? What he so quickly overlooks is the fact that this is the twenty-first century, where the little lady might not have a man to go out and bring home the bacon, she might not even have a husband at all. Not to mention that school also means much needed jobs! Teachers, counselors, principals, janitors, the list goes on; all are surviving from the paycheck they receive from these jobs. I dare to say it, maybe we don’t need school for our core education, that’s what college is for, but we do need school to get us into the routine of having a structured life. It puts on a schedule, and requires us to learn time management and prioritize.
Which brings me also to Gatto’s touching on the idea of, “being more flexible on time, texts and tests…” I’m sorry, but what?! These are just the beginning steps to teaching children about deadlines, punctuality, and good study habits. Do you think your boss is going to be flexible on when you show up to work, hoping that eventuality you will pick up on the idea of what time is appropriate? I highly doubt it. All of these things may not be a contribution of our actual education we receive in school, but they certainly come with the territory of getting an assignment, working on it in a timely manner and handing it to the teacher on the due date.
Gatto also references Alexander Inglis’s, “Principles of Secondary Education,” which list what he believes to be “the six basic functions” of modern schooling. They say things such as, “Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority,” and, “its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable…” Although I can agree with schools forcing us to react to authority, why is this considered a bad thing? Would they really rather we grow up never respecting the figures that are only established to keep us from hurting others and/or ourselves? These “fixed habits” are implemented in the earliest stages when we are taught to stand in a straight line, not talk during class, and raise our hands to ask questions, but again I ask, what part of this is a bad thing? A school where none of these behaviors are applied would be in complete chaos at most hours of the day. So I say give me rules and let me respond to them. If I’m considered predictable because know how to respond to right and wrong behaviors, then I’m predictable.

3. My own experiences in high school affirm Gatto's argument that schools function to "habituate" students to authority.

My own experiences in high school affirm Gatto's argument that schools function to "habituate" students to authority. I attended a private high school, and although they did a fair job in teaching us to determine what was right and wrong for ourselves, they tried to do it in a way that we would come to the same conclusions as they did. Of course there were some teachers that stood out in really seeming to want us to make our own decisions, as I'm sure there are in every high school, but it was very clear that those teachers were not the schools favorites. Gatto nails it when he begins his argument by saying students were bored, cause we were bored! Every class was the same structure wise, it just discussed different subjects. And of course in high school all of the kids are more concerned with what we were going to do that night then what was actually going on in class, so rarely did anyone ever willingly participate in the discussions. We only voiced our opinions when we had too, and that goes with his theory that we are only being taught to obey authority in the classroom. With all of the materials available to us now days, i.e. cliff notes, pinkmonkey.com, the internet, we really didn't need to do any research of our own because it was all so accessible and easy to get too, who is going to think for themselves?

Difficulty paper- John Gatto

I can honestly say that I am pretty much on the same page as Gatto with his views on education. He really seems to cross the line in the best possible way and ask what our schools are really teaching children today, and I love it! He suggests that we are basically sending our kids off to school to create the same cookie cutter robots that have no imagination and find it hard to even think of questions to ask that aren’t spelled out for them already. For example, I have a friend that is finishing up her degree and planning on being a teacher. She currently works at an elementary school and oddly enough, not even a week ago she was complaining to me that the children, ages 3 to 6, literally do not have any imagination. She told me how she would read them a story and tell them to draw a picture of the story while she was reading it, and more then half of the class claimed that they wanted to see what she was going to draw and copy her. She then told them that they could not copy her and they needed to think of something on their own, suggesting that they close their eyes and draw what they saw in their head. They all said all they could see was black. So what are we sending our kids to school for at such a young age? I know I don’t want my child to feel like they need to be like everyone else, they should stand out, in a positive way obviously.
Thinking this over, I come to the conclusion, yes we need school, but I think we need to ask our teachers to expand their teaching techniques and try to be more creative. We need to send our children to school giving them the impression that it is not only for them to get an education, but for them to discover themselves using the education as a backbone. Overall, I really enjoyed reading John Gatto’s take on education and for the most part agreed with his theories on how we should approach it.

Essay #1 first draft

Even though I don’t revise, by professional writers standards, the correct way, I do have to pat myself of the back and say that for the most part, I recognize who I am writing for, and try to cater to my audience, making sure they will be able to follow my paper. For example, when I would have to write research papers or book reports middle and high school, they would usually go something like, a topic sentence, a quote and then support the quote, which seems very formal and structured, because it was. Now teachers in college classes want your papers to be less formal, but still have as much structure, but be more conversational.
Because I do not have a job, or any other activities that require me to write formal papers, the only writing and revising I do is for school. Nancy Sommers claimed that student writers only focus on the micro issues, only worrying about not being repetitive and revising only words, not restructuring sentences or paragraphs, or even the entire paper, and I must admit, at first I thought this was ridiculous. But now that I really think about it, it’s so true, that is exactly what I do when I revise. Although I’ll tell you it’s definitely not the most productive and resourceful way to write, I do think it’s unfair to expect student writers to do as much revising as professional writers do.
I have to admit, I am not the biggest fan of English and writing classes. I guess it’s because they are not my strongest gifts. I would much rather solve a lengthy math problem or really anything else then sit down and write a paper, let alone go back after I have written it and revise it. But if I were to pick the hardest part of writing a paper, it would definitely be getting me to actually start, just put some ideas down, and write something! I’m going to have to say that just about all of my English teachers have taught me to revise the same text book way; get a first draft down, let it sit, come back and read it over, changing what either doesn’t flow, or restructure some sentences and/or paragraphs, even delete some things all together and re-write them. What’s sad, is that no matter how many teachers have told me this, and I’m sure this is true for some other students as well, it still takes a lot for me to come back and revise! To think of completely deleting a paragraph or even just a sentence that took so much effort for me to even write in the first place almost seems ludicrous!