Assignment #2

You Gatto Tough it Out

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 are many large advantages of going through the public school system that John Gatto seemed to have forgotten about or chose to leave unaddressed. John Gatto seemed to have a very negative outlook on the schooling system which may have blinded him from some of the important factors of the public system today. I will now bring a few of them to your attention to hopefully at least bring light upon some of the advantages it gives you.

Gatto began by giving examples of a few historical figures who have come from the nontraditional education system and still contributed greatly to our society. He named George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln to state a few. I do agree with him that these men were very intelligent for their time and have had a large contribution to molding the future of not only America, but the world as well. What I do not agree with is that it supports his argument whatsoever. Of course there will always be the geniuses of their time who stand above the rest and lead the path for others to follow, but what about all of those who don’t. You can always name people that have succeeded but would that help if a fact came out that only 1% of nontraditional scholars actually succeeded? I made that number up but it goes to show that it is very likely that the success rate of public schooled graduates will tend to be higher than the latter. The reason their schooling system was not as grueling was because they did not have as much information to teach. We have come a long way from then and we can now learn what they discovered for us in a week’s worth of time in high school. If it weren’t for our school system, how would we have any of the advancements we have in science and medicine that we have today, especially at the rate that it is progressing. With all of the information and technology available today it would be illogical to claim that someone with great life experiences would be able to stumble upon a treatment many of the viruses and bacteria out in the world. In less than a year since the outbreak scare we have found a vaccination for H1N1, which was first produced by a Swiss company named Novartis AG . I would be willing to bet my life’s salary that these scientists came from a very demanding schooling system.

I would now like to move on to 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 too 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 unaddressed. 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 high school 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 dandelions. High school is a major growing stage for all people. It teaches each individual to handle bullies, criticism, and negative motivation. Although this can be tough, it truly teaches us how to handle the sour aspects of life and how to grow from them. It teaches you that sometimes you have to take action to better your environment and stick up for yourself otherwise people will walk all over you. It also promotes a healthy social lifestyle, which is one of the top qualifications in the real world. Now that I am nearing the end of schooling and beginning to prepare myself for the leap I have been hearing all sorts of stories and advice from some of my peers who are a little bit older than me. What I am learning is that your social skills may be rated higher than education in some examples. They say if two people are applying for a job and one is a little less educated in the other, but has social skills where the other one can hardly interact with the interviewer, the social one will be hired nine out of ten times. Social skills promote cohesiveness and creativity in the working world as well as higher team moral. Without being but through the gauntlet of the social schooling system, one will have a difficult time adapting when they are in their twenties.

I do not want you to think I don’t agree at all with some of Gatto’s claims of conforming students, but more to show the more optimistic outlook on our system today. I feel it’s safe to say that without the advancements we have had as a byproduct of our education system we would be greatly set back into a much more primitive lifestyle. I feel that there are always negatives to every situation or experience but until someone comes up with an option where the marginal benefit is greater than the current situation we should take advantage of the fortunes that we have available to us today. There are many countries without a solid school system and there is no comparison to the lifestyle we are blessed with because of it. There are many children who would give everything they posses to be given the chance to go through our school system today, so everyone should take a step back and be grateful for a system that has spoiled us.

Assignment 3

Colleguide: The College Guide to Writing

Getting Started:
We’ve all been there, you’re sitting in front of the computer and as far as your concerned the English language seems more foreign to you than tribal noises. Nothing seems to make sense and sentences are not being formed. This is where you begin writing those things down. That’s right you read this correctly, write them down. According to Shitty First Drafts, by Anne Lamott, you must begin writing somewhere, and because you will be revising later it is good to start writing because it will make your brain start to work and you will not only get some good sentences out of it but you will have made a blueprint to go back and build later.

Time:
Although this goes without saying, allotting enough time to thoroughly write your paper is the first step to successful college writing. I have learned that cramming the night before does not conduct creative writing. Sometimes it may be difficult but if you can start early you will be rewarded in the end.

Revision:
Now is where you graduate from middle school revision to real world revision, at least that’s how it felt for me. If you have the same basic understanding of revision that I had then you are under the impression that after you write your paper you run it through spell checker. Then you re read the paper and amend any wrong words that you used that the spell check may not have picked up, and if you have enough time, throw in a couple educated words just to spruce things up. This is a good start but you are nowhere near completion. As I stated in the previous section titled Time (please read first if you have not already done so), you have written only the first draft to your paper, using only your initial ideas and thoughts. Experienced writers claim that your first draft is just a starting point where your ideas form. From there is where you can respond you your ideas and elaborate on them so that you can restructure your paragraphs entirely.

Voice/Audience:
Say that you are watching your favorite television program and all of a sudden the moment you’ve been dreading has arrived, the commercial break. All of a sudden, before you can find the remote, this deep powerful voice comes on and you are immediately hooked. It is soothing, yet stern and keeps you relaxed the entire time. Before you know it you have just watched an entire All State car insurance commercial and for some reason you are tempted to follow the company even though you don’t know why. Well, I can tell you that it has a lot to do with the voice.
Even though you cannot auditorily express yourself through writing, your voice is equally important and you can express it through your tone and involvement in your writing. Nobody would want to listen to a screechy or monotone voice in person, so why would anyone want to read something with no personal involvement. When writing you must make the reader feel that he or she is actually listening to you speak. You must engage yourself in the writing, show emotion and interest. If you are not interested in your own writings, what makes you think they will be. This is not to say that you should not use sophisticated or academic terms, just throw in more common phrases every once in a while.
When writing I suggest that you try and get yourself into the topic and that you want to personally teach them or tell them a story as I am now. Show your passion and give your opinion every once in a while to show the reader that you are still there with them. A reader can feed off of your emotions so you need to use them to draw them in, this will make the reader feel more interested strictly on the fact that they are sharing an experience with you.

Interpretation:
Throughout college you will be asked numerous times to write papers on different subjects or readings, most of them will be unfamiliar to you and to fully understand them you must research and be able to comprehend the readings. As I am sure you know, this is not always that easy. However, I have learned a few things I would like to pass on to you. When reading an article it is very easy to stick with the parts you understood and skip over the rest. This may be comfortable, but a world of comprehensive papers await you if you take the next step. When reading a passage you must re read the sections you did not understand, pausing after each sentence and rewording it in your head as if you are taking notes to show yourself that you understood it. If you can slow it down like this and decode the complicated sentences you will gain a better understanding of the readings. When you are through, re read the article in its entirety so that you can get the true flow and cohesiveness of the information. This may take an extra thirty minutes, but when you are through you will save double that time when trying to put it on paper. You will have a full understanding as well as a connection with the author and his thoughts, which will make things much easier when it comes to the analysis.
I truly discovered this when I wrote a paper on a chapter of Ways of Reading, where Bartholomae and Petrosky gave me advice similar to this. When I wrote about it, it actually forced me to practice the act and I was able to come up with my own strategy, putting together many of the things they told me. A quote they used by I.A. Richards which really drew my attention was… “Read as though it made sense and perhaps it will.”(p.10) This helped me not get as caught up and when I would re read the section I would have somewhat of a pathway pre formed in my head.