Response to “Against School”

In the essay "Against School" by Taylor Gatto, I find it sad that after 30 years of teaching this former teacher is so disappointed with the school system that he thinks that there is conspiracy against the people. "The Prussian Conspiracy" is where only the elite were allowed to pursue a higher education. Perhaps, it is not a conspiracy. Maybe, it is just how things ought to be. Just like natural selection in the animal kingdom (according to Darwin). Maybe, the process of "diagnostic and directive function" is not too bad after all. Besides that, school is not for everybody; some people are happy not going to school.

However, equal opportunity for everybody that wants to go to school should be available. I wonder what "revolution" James Bryant Conant was talking about (pg 156). Does anybody know? I found the six basic functions of the modern school system interesting. (1) The adjustive or adaptive, (2) The integrating function, (3) The diagnostic and directive function, (4) The differentiating function, (5) The selective function, (6) The propaedeutic function. These six points explain the conspiracy that Gatto talks about in his essay. I have to give the author some credit because after one reads on, one feels as if there is a conspiracy going on. Maybe there is and I am just living in denial. Besides that, what can one do about it? "Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers." This quote describes so many people from nowadays that it sounds as if Gatto really has a point here. So, is our educational system a huge conspiracy? " We don't need Karl Marx's conception of a grand warfare between the classes to see that it is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize, them, to divine them from one another, and to discard them if they don't conform." This sure sound like a conspiracy, doesn't it?

The quote on page 158 that begins "Theorist from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew that…" is an excellent example of the appealing to authority fallacy. I was nervous when I first began to read this essay but when I finally finished it, I felt much better because Gatto not only came up with the theory conspiracy but he also advises us how to avoid becoming victims of it. His advice to avoid becoming a victim is as follows: "Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventures. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they will never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology--- all the stuff school teachers know well enough to avoid." Therefore, to avoid becoming victims of the conspiracy, we have to be educated.