Gatto believes that schools are designed to make sure that non one "ever really grows up." What does that mean? How do schools and our current educational model encourage "childishness"?
Gatto believes this because schools are teaching students to conform to the same ways and same types of learning.
ex: "childish adults regularly conflate opposition with disloyalty"
ex: Schools are to establish fixed reactions to authority.
ex: The integrating function. Might as well be called "the conforming function."
ex: The societal system implied by these rules will require and elite group of caretakers.
ex: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privilege pf a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.
He is comparing public education to a communistic system and a division of classes in which the intellectually "fit" survive, and the rest are cast out in hopes to raise the general intelligence of the populous. Like Audre Lorde, Gatto see's the education system as forced, unjust, and unfair. It leads to problems such as discrimination against students for various reasons, and leaves room for error in placement and/or social class. Mike Rose experienced this in his childhood schooling days, and criticizes the public education system for the same reasons. "No child left behind" is ironic due to the fact that students are regarded by teachers and society differently based on their academic marks. It is this type of system that leads to critique from scholars such as Woodrow Wilson, Mike Rose, Audre Lorde, Alexander Inglis, and John Gatto.
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