Analysis of the Article “The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher” by John Taylor Gatto Essay Example
“The Seven-Lesson School Teacher” is an article by John Taylor Gatto in which he summarizes his own experiences as a school teacher and concludes, that modern American schools teach seven basic lessons: confusion, class position, indifference, emotional dependency, intellectual dependency, provisional self-esteem, and constant surveillance. Gatto attempts to demonstrate how the school system has been deprived after the War of Independence. He states, that already in the times of American Revolution almost a 100% of free American colonists were literal, although there was no regular school teaching.
So, under his idea, problems with education in modern USA are directly caused by poor schooling. The school does not teach necessary skills and provides no systematic knowledge, and children get accustomed to “constant violations of natural order”. On the other hand, school is to produce a “
...sociable” person, whose primary preoccupation is not to violate any of rules and orders, although many of them are useless and even harmful for the personality itself.Gatto believes, that schools make children emotionally and mentally dependent from any possible authority, including school teachers, government officers and employers. The children are not encouraged to think by themselves, rather they are encouraged to accept the way of thinking of the others without reasoning.
This causes them not to care about the essence of things, but to pretend, that they do care, because they find themselves under constant surveillance by the others with little free space for private life and personal research. They become loyal members of a totally controlled society.The article may seem an insight, however, it lacks logical ties and groundings. Gatto does not offer any particular examples of his claims. He
does not attempt to find any foundations for such type of teaching.
In contrast he makes several admissions, like the ones, that a child, who is not to make a homework will teach at own initiative. However, he refuses to notice, that the same child can not only learn, but act anti-socially as well.Perhaps the weakest point of Gatto’s article, is that he only criticizes, but does not analyze any positive impact of schooling, as well he does not offer any way out from the situation. This makes the article lop-sided. Nevertheless, it can be recommended to parents who care about choice of a good school for their children, as well as to educational specialists and all those who are interested in problems of modern American school teaching.
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