Difficulty Paper #2

I found the article Against School, by John Taylor Gatto, to be a very interesting yet opinionated read. It is obviously apparent that John Gatto is very against the public school system and if he could have it his way, homeschooling would be just as acceptable. He made some very valid points, but there is one large advantage of going through the public school system that John Gatto seemed to have forgotten about or chose to leave unaddressed. This will be addressed later on in my review of the reading.

I would like to begin with Gatto’s use of Inglis’ six basic functions to discredit the public school system. The fourth function is quoted as follows:

“The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.”

This to me is a harsh spin of the truth, and I hope that as people read this paper to themselves they step back and challenge the writings in their head to make their own decision instead of conforming to the harsh opinions of Inglis and John Gatto.I feel that this statement is entirely un-true. When I was in school I always had the option of which class I could take, according to my skill level. Even though I qualified for all of the upper classes, I always had a choice from the beginning to perform at my highest potential. You may think, wait a minute, that’s what Gatto said because you were put in certain classes to set limitations on your potential. But really it was you who put yourself in classes and those who could not handle the higher classes went to the lower ones because they were to hard for them. They were failing the tests and obviously not ready for that next level. Also, if you were not ready for the tougher classes at a young age, it never set your path for the rest of your school career. You could always try again the next year, and if you really wanted to push your potential you would study over the summer to prepare yourself for the leap the next year, so it was never pre-decided by someone else, but it was each individual who ultimately controlled their fate.

Now for one of the main advantages to going to a public school that has gone entirely un addressed. Now that I am nearing the end of college and beginning to flirt with the adult world, I have realized that there is one thing that can either take you very far or shadow your intelligence and skills, no matter how educated you are. That one trait is social skills. No offense to any student that have been homeschooled because this does not apply to all homeschooled students, it is just an observation I have made from all of my encounters with homeschooled students. Even though some claim that highschool is very harsh on some students because of the social networking that takes place, it truly prepares us for the real world. High School may be harsh for some, but the real world isn’t full of candy and dandilions. High school is a major growing stage for all people. It teaches each individual to handle bullies, criticism, negative,