"School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children" (154). This statement is what really stood out to me in Gatto's article. He truly believes that our forced school system has a lot less to do with education and more to do with making sure that we are trained to become an obedient labor force that can't think for ourselves. After reading this article several times, it dawned on me that Gatto is right and I agree with what he had to say.
According to Gatto, there are six unstated purposes of public schools.
1. The adjustive or adaptive function
We go to school to learn how to react a certain way to authority and do exactly what we are told. This takes away from our critical judgement/thinking and causes us to believe that it doesn't matter if we are learning something interesting or not as long as we're doing something.
2. The integrating function
Schools conform children to make them all alike. They make sure that they dress and speak similarly, taking away from their individuality. This makes all of the children more "predictable" which makes it easy for those who wish to manipulate a large labor force.
3. The diagnostic and directive function
Students' "permanent records" determine their proper social role.
4. The differentiating function
After their social role has been determined, children are trained to be successful only as far as their social role merits, and not any further. So if you're a "bad kid" with a not so great permanent record, and say you struggle with math, you'll most likely be placed in the lowest level math class. Then within that class you won't be challenged or pushed, you'll be taught just enough to get by at that level.
5. The selective function
This refers to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races". Schools categorize students into groups. The ones that are "unfit" receive punishments and poor grades enough that their peers see them as worthless, inferior, or not worth their time as far as forming relationships of any kind goes. From first grade onwards, teachers have made it so that the good kids are recognized and make it out of school and the bad ones get washed down the drain.
6. The propaedeutic function
This is in place so that a small group of the children will learn to become the next generation of "caretakers". They will be taught how to manage the forced school system and how to watch over a population of dumbed down people so that large corporations and the government can "proceed unchallenged" (153).
It's weird, and somewhat challenging, to take a step back from everything, everything I've learned from grades K-12, and really examine the system as a whole. Gatto asks in his article if school is even necessary. And by school he doesn't mean education, of course education is necessary, but is forced schooling for 12-13 years really necessary? Probably not. But this is the norm, this is what we are used to. Going to school for 9 months a year, 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. That's normal. And when I thought about it, from day one I learned how to react and respond to authorities in what is considered the socially accepted, appropriate way. And we just accept it, I accepted that that is how I am supposed to act and I never questioned it. And that's sort of what they want, they don't want us to question what we are taught. Just accept it, regurgitate, get a good grade, and move on. Now to be honest, I enjoyed most of my school years, especially high school. I liked most of my teachers and made a lot of life long friendships with my peers. I took more interesting courses as I got older and through those classes I was able to discover what I'm interested in and what I'm passionate about. And all of those positive things could still have happened without all of the strict and sometimes bizarre rules that my school enforced. Our society is so used to the public school system and it is so engrained in our brains as being something that is necessary that I don't think we'd be capable of getting rid of it or changing it drastically. But small changes should definitely be made, such as giving students more freedom to think for themselves and express themselves, and then we can go from there. We should still go to school, but as Gatto stated we should be able to "manage [ourselves]" (155).
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