Racism+-+'The+Seven+Lesson+Schoolteacher'

Racism: "The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher" I think Gatto, being a schoolteacher himself, could very well be overtly pessemistic in his opinions of current education; but he still makes excellent observations about the way a school is run. Still, I'd have to say I'm rather torn on the issue; it's blatantly apparent to me that the way our school systems are set up doesn't work anymore, but then there are teachers in our particular building that do want to see students perform well and try to make sense of what's being learned. Despite that, I fall more on the position that says "a good student learns despite of school, not because of it."

"The logic of the school-mind is that is better to leave school with a tool kit of superficial jargon ... than with one of genuine enthusiasm" (174). Gatto's confusion is a lot of stuff at once: it's the discontinuity of facts, teaching things in what appears to be an arbitrary manner, and caused largely by ADHD of the student's classes. I can definitely see this happening in our school; maybe not so much the discontinuity of facts, but that would be more of not knowing how to argue against what we disagree with because of single point of view being taught, the problem with multiple views being taught is that students then feel that there's a discontinuity in "facts" and it then becomes a waste of time. I know for a fact that not every class gives real-world applications for their cirriculum, something that definitely leads to confusion. In chemistry, physics, calculus, the classes teach the information that needs to be known but that's it; I haven't seen, especially in calculus, any possible real-world applications that would make the class all that more worthwhile. Other classes, like history and english do a better job at connections between the classroom and the real-world. I think the foreign language classes are somewhere in the middle; modern languages are highly applicable to the outside world, but the arbitrariness of the vocabulary and infrequency of practice, assigned and out of voillition, makes the classes seem impractical. I think one of the biggest reasons for this confusion and seeming lack of applicability is, as Gatto points out, the school's mind set, which wants students to try their hand at multiple areas so they get a better feel for what they like and don't like. Essentially, it's a battle between specialization and a renaissance man. The current state of academic affairs, as much as it kills me to say, favors specialization, while high schools teach via a renaissance man approach. The obvious disconnection leads to confusion because at the same time students are being asked, nay required, to try their hand at every possible field, they have to become mini-experts in each field in order to pass, something that can't be done because a student could feasibly devote enough time to become mini-experts in one or two, three if they're really good. I know in my classes, most of which are advanced, I feel as though I can't focus on them as much as I would like to because of this.

Some of these lessons caught by surprise by how subtle they are, supposing these are lessons deliberately taught and not simply a byproduct of the current school set-up. One of them that caught my attention was class position: "I've shown them how to envy and fear the better classes and how to have contempt for the dumb classes" (175). Being the current valedictorian, I can't say I know what it's like to "fear" the better classes, but I have definitely seen, and even shown, contempt for the remedial classes. Point blank, I hate that there are classes being taught that are considered "blow-offs"; we come to school because it is, suppose to at least, an institution of learning and having a class or classes that are simply time wasters does nothing for a student. I understand the concept of "well at least they're here because the school is making money" and that "at least they're off the streets", but still, shouldn't school be less of a daycare and more of a school? Yes. I hate how there are classes for students who are slower than most, designed to help students get the same information, but don't. I have a friend, same grade as me, in one of the "lower" classes, and I am appalled at how unprepared they are for college; it almost seems like the teachers walked in already with the mindset that these students wouldn't make it to college, which is really disgusting. I personally believe that any student, any body, can be on the same level as the "upper" classes if only they try hard enough, and the way schools are set up to promote an intelligence class-system really irks me. Perhaps I've been taught a little too well in the art of looking down my nose, but I was homeschooled for half my life, so I'd like to think I'm not so much hating the dumb ones so much as I hate the system we're subjugated to. I feel as though I really got off track there, the point being that I completely see the lesson of class division in schools. I have the same people, or there about, in almost all of my classes, we're constantly being told by teachers that we are "the best and brightest of ray-pec", which only furthers the belief, and the class ranking system really does enforce the idea of position.

I have a hard time finding anything I disagree with, or any one super important quote in the article. I do think that not all of Gatto's lessons are effectively taught; his fourth lesson, emotional dependency, has strength, but it's not as powerful for some people, and such is the case with other lessons. Granted, I see instances of all these lessons, and I'll focus on the fourth in the paragraph, students get bright-eyed and estatic when they get a sticker, but then there are those of us who just don't fall for it. In my Spanish class last year, I sat with a particular girl who essentially obsessed over stickers, and essentially heckled me into taking a sticker: I took the copyright sticker (and it's been a habit to do so, and only the copyright sticker, ever since). Now this year, we've been offered, multiple times, the award of candy for success, and it just seems silly to me. Thinking about it, the one place I would disagree with Gatto is whether or not students can fight these lessons; Gatto says "no curriculum of content will be sufficient to reverse its hideous effects" (180), I say we can. Sure, we will fall to our own vices, but with subtle subversion, a student could completely rebel against the system without ever making a scene. The only problem would indifference; we're in our senior year, and we all just want out, although not necessarily to stop learning, at this point, all talk of completely screwing the assignment in favor of our personal desires is just talk. The only way a person could truly get at the system would be to start early, and often with enthusiasm. It seems as though Gatto's lessons are a fortified fortress, but I think with enthusiasm and an unbreakable will, a student could very well "learn despite of school, not because of it."