Discuss how schools and communities can reduce the educational gap between social classes (using as references Michael Moore’s “Idiot Nation” and John Taylor Gatto’s “Against School”).
Schools and communities can reduce the educational gap between social classes by resorting to appropriate, realistic and genuine solutions to educational and societal problems. Michael Moore’s Idiot Nation and John Gatto’s Against School candidly exposed the relevant ills besetting education (in particular) and society (as a whole) to come up with some implied solutions. Hence, this essay will resort to the use of Moore and Gatto’s writings, respectively.
Moore, as a writer, critic, activist and award-winning American filmmaker, in his Idiot Nation, elaborated on the causes of deterioration of US educational system using as bases his personal experiences, research on the issues and statistical figures. On the other hand, Gatto, who for 30 years as a teacher and former New York Teacher of the Year, in his Against School, talked about the crippling effect of education on children – and why it is so. Moore and Gatto, in their own unique ways, both stated implicitly their perspectives, offered advice and provided suggestions to counter the educational and societal problems that they mentioned concerning American schools (in particular, among students, teachers and heads/principals) and communities (consisting of the family, political leaders and corporations):
- Schools (Students, Teachers and School Heads)
- Students: For Moore, in his Idiot Nation, students should learn to know, exercise and fight for their rights. By doing so, they will address some of the issues that where students are simply required to: “Don’t question authority. Don’t think, just do as I say” . Doing so may mitigate the problems of a nation in producing millions of illiterate students. Although seems to be sarcastic and insensitive of other people’s feeling in using blatant and honest-to-goodness ‘verbal assaults (Moore 130ff),’ he did so in exercising his freedom of expression. In like manner, Gatto implied that students should be responsible for their “boredom” by going against learned helplessness, lethargy, self-pity and despondence. Gatto’s advice is “to encourage the best qualities of youthfulness” such as using curiosity, adventurousness, autonomy, collaboration (with competent adults) and other creative outputs – and not to let one’s childhood (immaturity) get “extended, not even for a day.”
- Communities (Politicians and Corporate America)
- Politicians: For Moore, in his Idiot Nation, American political leaders should not be more interested in building “bombers” and holding hearings on inappropriate T shows, but rather concentrate on the improvement of US educational system for their constituents . In addition, politicians should increase educational funding so that American education will not lag behind other countries. Further, whenever politicians want evidence of satisfactory students’ performance, they should themselves perform according to set standards, which is of course, fair to those who elected him in office. (But it seems that, if people elected the kind of leaders that Moore posited, isn’t that there are indeed more idiot electorates than there are idiot leaders?) In like mind, Gatto claimed that Americans should be matured enough not to get easily swayed by political exhortations that will insult really grown up people. For Gatto, the root of the boredom in school dates as far as the “Prussianization of American schools” that was “deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects to render the populace ‘manageable,’” which simply makes education as a dehumanizing tool.
- Corporations: Moore explicitly exposed, by citing various instances, wherein it seems at first that he was praising American corporations for partnering and then funding schools (Moore 139-140); still, it became evident on the succeeding statements that their true intentions is really advertise and then actually earn by having exclusive rights with school children as their target market (Moore 141-142). However, Moore did not provide a counter-argument as to how exactly schools needing resources could actually generate their own income if not resorting to partnership with corporations willing to give financial supports/incentives. Inferably, Moore perhaps was not completely aware of the fact that corporations have the social responsibilities to help society/schools and that there is always a need for mutual benefits. On the other hand, for Gatto, he quoted Inglis concerning one of the basic functions of schooling – propaedeutic. The intent is to have a servile workforce and harmless electorate who can easily be watched over and controlled by corporations for, in one way or the other, ‘profiteering.’ He offered a solution by pointing out that schools are really meant to be “laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands” .
Moore and Gatto, in their own unique ways in a democratic society, aired their views and make a stand for schools and communities not to capitulate on conventional ways of doing things; instead, change must be embraced judiciously so that reforms in the various facets of the educational, political and corporate systems to transform. They both called to action of changing old systems by making students feel humanized, hiring qualified professionals, electing ‘wise” leaders (whose primary interest are their constituents) and then continuing with the change for the better – so that educational gap between social classes will be reduced.
Works Cited
Gatto, John Taylor. "Against School." Harper's Magazine September 2003: 33-38. Web. January 2013. <http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm>.
Moore, Michael. Idiot Nation. Stupid White Menand Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2002. Print.
