Constructing an Account of an Argument

Constructing an Account of an Argument In the article "Against School" (2003), John Taylor Gatto debates that mandatory school is not educating our children but instead the schools are teaching them how to be manageable. He supports his claim by giving us personal accounts of what he has seen, examples of people who have been successful in life whom were not subject to the school system, and he also gives us text from other authors who support his views. Gatto's purpose is to inform his readers about the problems with our school system in order to stop this from happening to our children. His intended audience for this article are parents, people who want to be parents or are going to be parents and others who are interested in this topic. Gatto starts his article off by addressing the problem with boredom in schools and personal experiences he has been through involving the school system. He tells us that not only were the students bored in school because of the senseless work they were doing, or that they don't understand the work, or they already knew what they were being asked to do. The teachers were bored as well, who blamed the students but they were trapped in the same strict structures of the compulsory school program as the students. The author then suggests that maybe that there is not a "problem" with the schools. That they were right when they designed the school to do just what they are doing. Designed not to teach us but to keep us from ever really growing up. With that thought the author asks "do we need school?" Gatto gives us example of well known people who have accomplished great things in their life time but were not educated through the school system. He then segways into what we think schooling is and what it is supposed to teach us and help us accomplish. As Americans we have been taught that our success and financial stability depends on our schooling. That schooling helps us to be good people, good citizens, and to make us the

Cited: Gatto, John Taylor. "Against School" Rereading America. Bedford / St. martin 's, (2010). 148-155. 1 Feb. 2011