Professor Linda King
English 1A- 40396
30 September 2015
Against School Essay: Prompt One “Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever reintegrate into a dangerous whole (Gatto 3).” It might be appalling to you to even read such a statement from Alexander Inglis, cutting students by the masses and grouping them into categories, however, what is more appalling is that subconsciously and unknowingly this is what has been happening in most schools. Ironically, in school students are taught to be open minded, nonjudgmental, and accepting of one another when in fact the school …show more content…
When Gatto read The Child the Parent and the State, he came across a passage where Conan mentioned, “that the modern schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered between 1905 and 1930 (Gatto 3).” This statement made John Gatto intrigued of the aforementioned “revolution” and with further investigation he found Alexander Inglis’ assertions about modern schooling. In Inglis’ book, Principles of Secondary Education, Gatto experienced an epiphany of that, “one saw this revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary." This realization solidified John Taylor Gatto’s opinion of an unfair schooling system, and taught him more enigmas that he himself never thought …show more content…
He stated the modern schooling system’s blueprints of social roles and expectations of students and how they’re grouped into ranging categories starting off from leaders ending up to followers. I too agree that the school system impedes in a scholar’s personal growth, but unfortunately, it is the norm in many of the educational institutions. As John stated, “We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of "success" as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, "schooling," but historically that isn't true in either an intellectual or a financial sense (Gatto