Kandice Van Dyke Van Dyke, page 1

Dr. Jan Rieman

English 1101X
4/6/10

The Devouring Curriculum

Imagine this: you sit in a classroom 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 arithmetic.

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 you’re confused. What do I 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 are responsible 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”, John Taylor 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

boring facts and ideas that I usually have difficulty reading. Instead, this reading sucked me in

and I found myself feeling consumed 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 around 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
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and graduated. It wasn’t until senior year when I started getting more involved with extra-

curricular activities. I made better grades and I was, in general, happier to come to school and

learn. 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 is 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 privilege to

partake. Most students and my close friends never liked high school. They never took advantage

of all the things you could do. In turn, they never cared about their education. I also thought

about when I’m forced to memorize material, I forget things easier. It’s like it goes into my

short-term memory; whereas, the things I lived through stuck with me. “You have to find out

who you are by experience and by risk-taking, then pursue your own nature intensely”- Gatto.

This further supported what I had always thought about school when I read through this article.

“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 “Take Back Your Education”. In school, we’re

taught to conform. It’s the only way to graduate and the key to making things work. We talked in

class about 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
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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 two weeks and have people in different professions mentor

students. They can choose whatever field they want, it’s all for the experience. In actuality, 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 are either not sure of exactly

what or are not sure of how to get there.

In short, Gatto really helped me see everything in a clearer way. I know with Anyon’s

essay we saw the unfair hidden curriculum, but this actually made it sort of personal. Lots of

people might argue with his theories, but I personally support them. I think the school systems

should teach what we need to know, what will really prepare us. The curriculum devours

creativity and chance for individualism. With people like this finally starting to speak their mind

and voice their opinions, I have no doubt in my mind that change really is inevitable and that

hopefully, as people awaken to what’s happening around them, the world might become one of

equal opportunity.