My observation of "Against School: How Public Education Cripples our Kids, an Why"

I felt that John Gatto's narrative is mostly full of hog wash. I think his narrative is more of a rant, than Michael Moores "Idiot Nation". I disagree with Gatto's thought process, however there was only two paragraphs I truly appreciated, the talk between him and his grandfather, and the GOOD NEWS paragraph on pg. 5. But I continued to ask myself, how can someone argue the fundamentals of the importance of school? School is so important.

With this economy today, just having a high school education, a GED will not allow you to get a job to support your family. Like we mentioned today, it takes two people in the household to support a family. We don't have our mom or dad at home to teach us like it was when George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, etc. was in school. Shoot by the time they were of age 11 - 15 they were considered an adult. I can't even imagine children in today's society being that responsible. Times have changed.

Gatto mentioned in pg.1/ paragraph  3 that his grandfather gave him a talking to about Boredom. I do however agree with the grandfather, that if you are bored, it is your fault. There are so many things to do, and if you choose to be lazy, sleep, drink, eat your day away - then you have no one else to blame, but yourself.

At least Gatto tried to instill this into some of his students. If he had an attitude on education - like he does in the narrative throughout the paper on the what if of education, what does he expect people to think about him?

Gatto reminded me of Mr. Keating, when he stated to teach your own children to be leaders and adventures vs. employees and consumers. It is true, we do need to challenge our kids more to have them have a more meaningful life that they can have (pg. 5 / paragraph 3). If we don't prepare our children now for their higher educations, they will not have a future. As for Gatto and Moore they both focused on advertising.

I was a housewife for the last 7 years. In high school I majored in Intensive Business. Before marrying Kenny, I had a wonderful job working for an environmental service with WTI. When the office shut down, I had to take a min. wage job because everyone felt I was over qualified to work in the office. After losing my job this past January, I looked for employment in my trained field. Because I didn't have proper college education, I am back in school. I have returned to college for a degree, because if you don't have that GOLDEN TICKET, you will not get a job to build your future.

Class notes:

In Gatto essay we read about processes, funding, attitude, beliefs.