Response Paper to Against School by John Gato

Against School Response In “Against School,” John Gato explains that there’s something wrong with the education system along with the process of schooling. In my response, I understand where he’s coming from. I’ve been contemplating myself as to how my twelve years of education had been. I personally agree to his arguments against the education system and public education. I believe what Gato is saying that the educational system and schooling has an issue involving the control and predictability of children.

First, Gato contemplates about schooling and the boredom involved. I agree that, in his view, there’s boredom involved in teaching. He states that during his time teaching, he asked the teachers why they felt bored, and they put the blame on the children. However, I don’t believe this one bit. I believe that individuals who take responsibility are not to be solely blamed. I think everyone involved in this kind of situation share the responsibilities for who’s bored.

In this situation, it’s possible to say both the students and teachers are to blame for boredom, and no one is solely to take responsibility for that. From his standpoint, Gato believes that the education system controls the will of students. According to Gato, the true intentions of mandatory education are to turn children into servants. Gato refers to Alexander Inglis’s view of mandatory education. Within these concepts are six basic functions, and most of these functions are what control is in the education system.

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A few functions, for example, are the diagnostic and directive functions and the differentiating function. Respectively, one function states that the school evaluates each student’s “proper social roles” by logging evidence into cumulative records known as your “permanent record” while in the other function, children are sorted to each role after evaluation and trained in a systematic manner. Another thing to point out is the predictability involved with the system of education.

Alexander Inglis’s view of mandatory education has a basic function that represents this predictability. According to Inglis, this basic function of modern schooling is considered the integrating function, which intends to make children as the same as possible. I believe this can relate to the school uniforms that some schools still do. Personally, I don’t prefer to be as “alike” because I believe that everyone is naturally different in their wn way, so restricting the freedom for people with coerced conformity wouldn’t be entirely human. To recap, Gato focuses on the system of education and schooling involving with the controla and predictability of children that are being taught. I thought that going to schools meant that I would have to be educated in a social, organized way, but he gave me a perspective that I have not put a lot of thought into. Children are neither to blame nor the teachers. Sometimes the system of education is not what people think it is.

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