RA #1

Rhetorical Analysis

Question 1

John Taylor Gatto wrote an article called Against School, which appeared in Harper’s Magazine in 2003. In this article he presents an argument on why he believes the school system is both childish and boring.

Gatto was a school teacher in New York for thirty years. During those years he has observed that there is boredom amongst the students and the teachers. If asked, the students would blame the curriculum and the teachers for their boredom. The teachers would blame the students. He realized at that point that something was wrong and needed to change.

Naturally Gatto would try to find different ways to teach that would motivate both him and his students. He said “Often I had to defy custom, and even bend the law, to help students break out of this trap.”(149) As a result, the school system retaliated, Gatto returned from a sick leave to find himself without a job. They had destroyed any evidence of him being granted the leave, and he had lost his teaching license. These acts by the school led Gatto to conclude that the school system is both childish and boring.

I agree with Gatto’s beliefs about the school system, I too think that it is childish and boring. I value a strong education, and I appreciate it, but I don’t agree with the way that we receive that education. I don’t think getting up at 6 a.m. every day, five days a week, for twelve years, only to do busywork for six hours is productive or healthy. I always got the impression that teachers were disappointed with the way they were required to teach, and that were being trained to think and to act in a certain way, rather than being educated. Although there were teachers, classes, and subjects that I enjoyed and were valuable to me. Overall I felt that I was trapped in a monotonous cycle and I wished there was a better way. Then I found one.

In eighth grade I received a lower back injury that forced me to lie off of sports. Classwork was easy, so I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. I knew that I was to attend Aptos High School next year and I would have to take at least two years of Spanish. The Spanish courses at the High School were notoriously bad, so I decided to take Spanish at Cabrillo College. I knew that one semester of Spanish at Cabrillo would count for two years of High School Spanish and it is UC transferable. Ever since that class I took at least one class every semester, including summers, for the length of my High School career. I realized that the extra classes gave me an advantage over the other students, allowed me to get ahead in school, and study the subjects I’m actually interested in. I ended up graduating a year early from High School with 42 transferable units under my belt. Now I’m at Cabrillo for a year and I plan to transfer to UCSD next year.

Taking an alternative method to my education wasn’t easy though. The High School fought me the entire time, the only member of the high school that supported me was my counselor. The rest of the faculty thought that I was being selfish, and that I was only trying to cheat the system. They were never helpful, and were reluctant to accept my units and they tried to force me to take unnecessary placement tests although they couldn’t benefit me. If it wasn’t for the support of my parents and my counselor I would still be there today. So from my experience I also think that the school system is both childish and boring.