Essay #2

Brendan Young

English 101: Feller

Essay #2 2/1/12

Education: Selective or Elective

            Children are often afraid to raise there hand in class and in many cases the chirping of crickets ensues as a teacher stares back at the students, which are supposed to be learning. This is an all to common sight in today’s day and age. Students afraid to learn from the wrong because they are taught at such a young age to always be correct. When did being correct become the only way to succeed? In John Gatto’s “Against School” he argues that, “Children learn things not because they are doing something wrong but because they are doing something correct” (Gatto 2). Does our current compulsory school system teach students that you cannot learn if you are wrong? From a young age every child has heard that you learn from your mistakes, is it true? We are putting out children through a school system that does not allow children to learn from their mistakes but instead punishes them. Gatto also argues that there are many people who have been successful that have not participated in what we would consider a “traditional” schooling (Gatto 2). In fact some of the greatest minds in history have been people who don’t seem to fit into the traditional system of school. This raises the question, are there other ways to learn that would be more effective than the compulsory education we have in place today? The tools to educate in other ways is out there, it is possible for people to learn through, homeschooling, private school, alternative and vocational schools, even a self-paced learning environment where the tools and materials are provided and you teach yourself.  A stretch? Maybe but we will see that people have been successful with independent study many times before. There is no way around it, the current education system is compromised, inadvertently we have stunted the growth of knowledge in our students by teaching them dependency and uncertainty and to curb this there should be alternatives in place for people who wish to learn effectively in different ways.

            Many people have seen there way through America’s education system and pushed on to receive their degrees from universities across the country but are they educated? John Gatto gives an example of people who have been wildly successful without a complete education, Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie (Gatto 2). These men by all standards have been successful but they did not receive the education that we are forced to put ourselves through. Had any of us opted out of school at a young age to pursue other ventures, we would be faced with constant opposition. Family and friends would only be disappointed and employers would say that we are undereducated and unable to perform daily tasks. There was no strict education system in America until the early 1900’s, how were people successful before then? It would be ignorant to say that the people of America’s history, who did not have a chance to receive the education of today, are uneducated. The argument that if you don’t go to school for 12 years you will never amount to anything doesn’t hold any water. It has no validity because we have seen “non-traditional” styles of learning work in the past. Is there any reason we should not consider accepting a different style of learning like some of histories greats? Benjamin Franklin, was not only a founding father of our country but he was also a skilled printer, author, political theorist, postmaster, scientist and inventor. Today he would be considered a dropout.  However the self-paced study that Benjamin Franklin put himself through would challenge most students with a heavier than average load at Yale. Yet self-paced instruction is not an option. It is not wrong to take education into your own hands and learn things on your own.

Clearly the only way to learn cannot be the rote style of learning we receive in our classrooms today. Is the Traditional system of learning working? In the sense that it is turning out individuals to the next level of education, yes it is working. But are the individuals that make it through the schooling system educated? Plain and simple, students in school systems are not actively learning. In Gatto’s Essay, “Against School” he states that, “Boredom is a common condition among school teachers” (Gatto 1). Not only is it a plague that affects the teachers but also it easily spreads into the minds of the students. Active learning is apart from boredom; if a student is actively learning and engaged then there should be no mention of boredom. Where our system fails is that it promotes repetition of material and the rote style of learning that seems to bore students to death by battering them over the head with the same material over and over. Tasks in school have become so tedious that students are no longer learning for themselves; instead they are going through the motions to “make the grade”. Ken Macrorie’s “The Poison Fish” gives us insight into the dilemma above:

Most English teachers have been trained to correct students’ writing, not to read it; so they put down those bloody correction marks in the margins. When the students see them, they think they mean the teacher doesn’t care what students write, only how they punctuate and spell. So they give him Engfish (Macrorie 1).

The idea of Engfish, presents the essential problem with the education system today. Students are not learning for themselves instead they are learning for the teacher, learning how to do everything correctly so they receive high marks. Schools, over the years, have become less and less effective at accomplishing their goal of educating children because students have fallen away from learning actively and more independently. Thus creating a dependency on instruction to function later in their careers.

America’s education system is compromised. It is riddled with boredom and disinterest. It is almost as though America’s school system is an environment in which active learning is rare. This isn’t the first time that we have seen a compulsory system of education have its road bumps, Prussia had one and this raises concern for the future of our “educated” people.  The goal of the Old Prussian system was to, “deny students appreciable leadership skills and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens- all in order to render the population manageable” (Gatto 3) By not allowing students to learn independently as well as actively we are inadvertently depriving them of the skills necessary for them to be complete citizens. While our schooling system may not be exactly the same as the Prussian system of the past our school system definitely has similar flaws. This brings to mind the phrase, “The world needs ditch diggers too.” This is no way for us to teach our children, instead we should be teaching our children to achieve, it is the job of the older generation to give the children and students the tools and motivation to be great. The world doesn’t need ditch diggers, the world needs free thinking individuals who can create and dream individually to advance and enhance the lives of all people. Gatto may be against school but not education, he finds a simple solution; we need to teach the future generations to be leaders and adventurers, teach them how to think critically and independently and most importantly it is out job to challenge and always continue questioning.

            If you want authenticity you have to initiate it. This is the true way to learn and we can see that from the successful people in our past. There are many styles of learning and there should be more than one option.  Ken Robinson of “Ted Talks” says we are killing the creativity of students in schools and he could not be more correct. We need to inspire the youth to make the changes to their own education, no longer should we as students be able to say this is boring, if its boring then you aren’t pushing yourself because no one can cure boredom but you and our current schooling system is not pushing us to be involved because there is one right answer. We know that we can learn from wrong, and that independent self-paced study has been successful in the past but are there more options? Could we let students pursue their own course of study and direct themselves into a profession with which they feel naturally inclined to. Would it be a viable option to give students a building full of the educational material and their peers and learn from each other, with just support from “teachers” rather than direction? Would students still be motivated to learn on their own? There are other options to consider as well, such as keeping the current system and changing our children are evaluated and divided.

            Going about changing the current schooling system would not be easy and of course face opposition. No one other than the students themselves should dictate how they educate themselves. The compulsory education system in place now has no doubt turned out many individuals who have gone on to great things but is that a result of the education they received or a result of their personal conviction and work ethic? And If that is the case then what is to say that the individuals would not have been as successful in another learning atmosphere. As students, what we can do is strive to be better, this means go beyond the minimum, don’t be afraid to challenge ideas or question. It is our job to have ideas and our job to continue learning at all times and most of all; we all have to start being wrong. That is when the learning will really occur.