Imagine this, you sit in a class room for 12 years of your life, learning what they said you’ll

need

to know. You go through the motions, learn your reading, writing, and arithmatic. Then you finally make

your way out the classroom door, finally graduated from the immaturity of grade school. You make your

way into the light of outside and your confused. What to do now? How do I succeed? How do I survive?

Most of us don’t need to imagine, because we’ve come across it already. we spend 12 years in a

classroom only to get out into the real world, unprepared. Who’s to blame? Some people would argue

the students for not applying themselves. Some would blame the government and their own social

standing for lack of accomplishment. One man decided to break out of the box and test other factors. In

“Take Back Your Education”, Gatto explores the idea that maybe the school system and curriculum

determine how much students learn about actually surviving in the real world. I read this article

anticipating the rather dry and boresome facts and ideas that I usually have difficulty reading. Instead,

this reading sucked me in and I found myself feeling comsumed with the thoughts and theories of Gatto.

I took mental notes of everything that stuck out to me, and found that for the most part, I agree entirely

with Gatto.

In my grade school experience, I moved aorund to different schools a lot, but the material for

the most part was the same. I learned my basic subjects, took the competency tests, passed and

graduated. It wasn’t until senior year when I started getting more involved with extra curricular activities

and I can honestly say, the things I learned out of the classroom have helped me more with life than

sitting in lectures listening about little facts in education. Don’t get me wrong, everything I learned in my

classes has helped me in some way with college and more advance classes, but all in all, the hands on

work I did helped me understand the structure of everything so much better. It the field work that has

helped me tie everything in together. I was a lucky student though. Not everyone got the chance to

experience and I learn what in which I got the priviledge to partake. I find that when forced to
memorize, I forget things easier. It’s like it goes into my short term memory; whereas, the things I lived

stuck with me. “You have to find out who you are by experience and by risk-taking, then pursue your

own nature intensely”- Gatto.

“The ancient Greeks discovered thousands of years ago that rules and ironclad procedures,

when taken too seriously, burn out imagination, stifle courage, and wipe the leadership clean of

resourcefulness”- Gatto. In school, we’re taught to conform. It the only way to graduate and the key to

make things work. We talked about in class how the people who used their creativity and stuck out were

the ones who broke the chains of conformity and decided to learn and experience different things. In

school, this was usually seen as a bad thing and those people were frowned upon and coined “trouble

makers”. Who wanted to be a trouble maker?? I definitely didn’t. I wanted to be the successful, polite,

and bright student that the teachers loved to teach and people loved to know. In my school, they taught

me that to conform was the only way to get there. Truth is, if anything, it taught me to not speak my

opinion and I found that I’m no longer all that creative. I came into high school with thoughts and

dreams, my imagination wild with crazy ideas of new things. It really is hard to think anymore. I was

programmed to memorize and repeat. When gatto was a teacher, he challenged his students to have

some actual experience. To taste that success of making your own way. He found that it worked better

and his students learned so much more. I wish I would’ve gotten that chance in my school. I always

thought that in school, a few weeks or so should be like a career week. Maybe take 2 weeks and have

people in different professions mentor students. They can choose whatever field they want, it’s all for

the experience. In actuallity, I think students would be better off for college if school could do something

like that. So many people come into college thinking about what they want to do, but either are not sure

of exactly what or are not sure of how to get there.