Blog #6

The book that my group is working on is The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling.  The author is John Taylor Gatto.  John Gatto is a former school teacher for nearly 30 years, and in his book you can really tell that he is all over the place with the different topics that he discusses, by the way that he jumps all over the place.  To be completely honest the book is pretty difficult to understand/read because he is all over the place, it is almost like he has turrets as he is writing his book.  The cover of the book is very interesting, and does a good job at depicting what the book is going to be about.  It shows three students running into a building with a lock on it, that is supposed to be representing a prison.  On the top of building it says "FORCED SCHOOLING", then on the other side of the building it shows the same kids that were running into the building coming out as wind up toys on a manufacturing belt.  Basically what this is saying is that kids are being forced to learn, and are coming out like programmed robots.

Gatto being a teacher has seen firsthand what is wrong the school system, and this what he talks about in his book.  One thing that my group found in the book was comparing to schooling to learning how to drive.  In the book it explains how when you learn to drive you are more likely to learn because if you mess up you could seriously injure yourself or other motorists on the road.  If you think about it everybody when goes to driving school they take it seriously because if they crash they could die.  If you mess up in school you don't die, you just get a low grade and get reprimanded.  The argument really is, are modern schools teaching useful information.  Just like we discussed in class about how schools teach you how to find three sides of a triangle if you only have two, but they don't teach you how to write a check, letter, taxes, etc.  Even how to address an envelope in the mail.  Personally, I think it is ridiculous, and I wish I was taught these things instead of useful knowledge that I will never use.  I think I learned more the first year of college then I did my entire high school career.

Some vocabulary that stuck out at me during the reading is pragmatic, calvinism, officialdom, and whigs.  Pragmatics mean to deal with thing sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations.  Calvinism is the Protestant theological system of John Calvin and his successors, which develops Luther's doctrine of justification by faith alone and emphasizes the grace of God and the doctrine of predestination. Officialdom is the officials in an organization or government department. Whigs is a member of the British reforming and constitutional party that sought the supremacy of Parliament. I retrieved all of the definitions for these words through Google.