Why American Public Education System Reflects a Total Failure Essay Example

having a 30 year cumulative teaching experience, his life as a teacher was rife of boredom. The case was not different from the other teachers and the students who all felt the same. The students always claim that the teachers do not comprehend their needs and they are therefore not interested in learning (Gatto). On the other hand, the teachers argue that the students are only interested in the grades and they are always rude and this accounts for their low energy, constant whining as well as dispirited attitudes. Isn’t a school supposed to bring together the teachers and the students and engage to facilitate education which is the core purpose of the school system? By the use of diction, Gatto clearly illustrates that the case appears different in the United States education system as the two parties to be disengaged and having conflicting views.

The teachers blame the children by being interested to be taught in the grades while the children feel that the teachers don’t know a lot about the subjects. This reflects a failure in a public education where the teachers and the students are disengaged each group having different interests. As a result, the school environment is characterized by boredom and the two parties that should collaborate together to promote education become totally disengaged (Gatto). This is evidenced by the teacher having little interest in teaching and the student desire to learn. By use of pathos, Gattos put it crystal clear that the American public school system reflects a failure as evidenced by the teachers and students conflicting attitudes towards each other while in actual sense they should be working together.

Gatto also

points out that going the formal education process as it is currently structured does not in any way a measure of success as many people tend to think. To support his argument, he mentions a few key individuals who made significant contribution in the American history, despite the fact that they did not undergo through formal schooling. As a result, he raises the question, “Do we really need school? I don’t mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? (Gatto). The current education structure helps a little in the transmission of knowledge in public schools as its products, children turned into slaves that cannot think on their own. Instead of helping the children to think critically on their own, be rational and innovative, it turns them to children. This is evidenced by the Gattos remark, “ the school has done a spectacular job of turning the children to children again” (Gatto).

This is a clear indication that the school does not contribute in making the children grow by being able to think on their own without depending on other peoples, and hence the question, Is schooling really necessary. To disregard the importance of the formal public schooling, Gatto mentions important figures who did not go through education system such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson but yet they were successful in their lives (Gatto). There are many other individuals all over the world who have never undergone the normal schooling, but they have also succeeded in their lives. This way, Lincoln uses diction to invalidate the

long held notion that success at least depending on the schooling. To him, it does not make sense historically either in financially or intellectually.

Gates has called upon the parents to take their children to other places they could receive a better education rather than forcing them to undergo the formal schooling that contributes nothing much in their lives. The school only makes the children match the corporates demands instead of turning them to individuals that can stand on their own by thinking critically and devising means that will help stand on their own without relying on other individuals or corporates for survival (Gatto). This raises the question; can the children make it or succeed without having to undergo the schooling system? To Gatto, the answer is perfectly yes. David Farragut managed to capture the British warship as a teen, and Thomas Edison published a broadsheet at the gage of 12 while Ben Franklin apprenticed himself to be the printer at the same age (Gatto).

In this case, go-to try to reveal to the parents that their children can be the best at a young age if they can be given a chance to manage themselves. The current structure of public school is a failure as it compels the children to undertake routines for 12 years that and it contribute in suppressing their geniuses. Talking from a stand of personal experience as a teacher, Gatto points out that the current education system, there are so many geniuses, but their knowledge is normally by our inability to manage the educated men and women. The current schooling system is therefore reflected a failure as it does not help in

any way to nurture the innate knowledge, gifts or talent many children that many children possess, but rather it suppresses them.

The current schooling system only helps in young species with the knowledge and to awaken their intelligence as H.L. Mencken puts it, and to train and breed the standardized citizenry (Gatt0). The current education system is designed in a manner that it produces the mediocre intellects, deny the students the appreciable leadership skills and to ensure docile as well as the incomplete citizens. This sole purpose of this education system is to make the citizens to be manageable. It therefore reflects a total failure as its products after undergoing 12-year training cannot be in a position to think on their own but they have to rely on others. It does not in any way help in nurturing the skills of the young people, thereby making them dependent on others for survival.

The current structure of American education represents a total failure as it contributes very little to the growth of children after undergoing 12-years training. Rather than making them grow, think critically and stand on their own, the schooling system extends their childhood and they continue depending on others for survival. As much as there are many geniuses as per the Gatto’s observation, the current education system suppresses the innate skills of these children, thereby rendering them dependent on others for survival and this accounts why the American education system is a failure. Gait invalidates the claim that success is closely linked to schooling as it has been held for a long time by many people by mentoring key individuals who never went through formal schooling

and they made significant contributions in American history.

In short the current American education structure reflects a total failure as it contributes very little in making the children grow, be innovative and think critically. On the contrary, it extends their childhood and makes them continue relying on others. It makes the children disinterested in learning and teachers in teaching, hence boredom in school environment.

Work Cited

1. Gatto, John Taylor. Against School. Harper’s Magazine, 2003.