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Breena Brown

Jan Rieman

English 1101x

7 April 2010

What Does it Mean to be Educated?

In John Taylor Gatto’s essay, “Against School”, the issue of education is discussed. He states, “…

plenty of people throughout the world today find a new way to educate themselves without resorting to

a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble prisons. Why then do Americans

confuse education with just a system?” (34). Gatto brings up an important issue of what is education and

why is it typically associated with schools. He provides several examples of famous people like Thomas

Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin, that had little schooling, yet turned out to be

incredibly intelligent. I believe that schooling should not define a person’s intelligence or their level of

education.

Nowadays, when a person is asked their level of education, they immediately respond

with the highest grade in school that they reached. However, I do not believe that question can be

answered with just the person’s school record. To me, education is more than math, language arts,

social studies and science. Education is constantly learning new concepts in academics, but also in life.

Not all life lessons can be taught in school. In fact, the only life lessons that I’ve learned in school were

ones like time management, perseverance and discipline, all of which I figured out on my own and not

from a teacher. Gatto created a list called, “12 Things You Might Not Have Learned in a Classroom”, in

which he described what he thought “really educated people” knew. For example, he claimed that a

really educated person would “create new things and find new experiences” but that can happen in or
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outside of a classroom. School is not necessary in this case to be considered somewhat educated. New

experiences like those that Gatto is talking about can occur through simply living your life.

People like my great grandmother, who stopped attending school after fifth grade, lived their

lives and experienced new events and gained more knowledge in everything they do even in their

failures. When discussing his 1,000 attempts to invent the light bulb, Thomas Edison once said, “I have

not failed 1,000 times. I successfully found 1,000 ways to not make a light bulb”. I believe that Edison is

right in what he’s truly saying. People can only succeed if they learn from their failures and their

mistakes. Gatto refers to Edison and several other famous people like Farragut, Twain and Rockefeller as

“unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated” (34). Simply because someone does not go to school

doesn’t mean they aren’t smart or aren’t qualified for decent jobs.

These days, people without high school degrees are lucky to get jobs at McDonalds or Taco Bell.

Typically, they aren’t even given a chance at big businesses and corporations. It’s the same situation

with people without a college degree. I don’t think it’s fair for a college graduate to be considered

smarter or more intelligent than someone who didn’t go to college. Businesses prefer employees with

college degrees. I don’t believe that a degree defines a person or means that they’re more qualified for

a particular job than some high school graduate. College means success nowadays. In this society,

people are pushed to go to college so that they can become “successful”. I don’t think college

guarantees success nor do I believe that dropping out of high school guarantees failure. I personally feel

like our society, including my parents, forced me into coming to UNCC. If I believed it was possible to get

a really good job without a degree, then I wouldn’t have come to college. I’m currently a Middle School

Education major. My previous education greatly affected my choice in major because middle school was

a useless experience for me. I don’t believe that I learned anything and I want to make sure that doesn’t

happen to anyone else. I want to help the students succeed, not necessarily attend high school or
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college, but I want them to learn. Sadly, the people that choose not to complete high school or attend

college are discriminated against when it comes to applying for jobs.

Another one of Gatto’s “12 Things You Might Not Have Learned in a Classroom” is that one must

“choose a vocation that contributes to the common good”. In order to get a vocation that does so, a

college degree is almost mandatory. I do agree that a job is beneficial to a person, however I don’t agree

with Gatto when he says that a really educated person must have a job that helps out the community.

Brilliant people can work in the worst jobs that are extremely detrimental to everyone.

The real meaning of education is different for everyone, but I believe that school and college

isn’t necessary for a person to be considered educated. There is a significant difference between being

unschooled and uneducated. I don’t always agree with Gatto, but I think for the most part he’s correct

like when he talks about the famous people being uneducated. I know several elderly people that

dropped out of school very early in their childhood, but they are some of the most intelligent people I

have ever known. Whether they learn through their work, family or parental influence or other life

experiences, they are far more intelligent than some of my professors here at UNCC. School doesn’t

equal brilliance.

Need works cited page

Self Assessment:

Professor Rieman,

The people that edited my paper said that I had several grammatical errors, so I attempted to fix all of
them. I’m not entirely sure if I caught them all. I fixed the ones they pointed out and re-read my paper
several times out loud and in my head, looking for any errors I missed. Also, I added the part about my
major. One of my peers asked me if my past education experiences affected my major and the reasons
behind my choosing Middle School education. This peer workshop was helpful, but I didn’t really get
much feedback so I’m not sure if there’s anything else I should change.
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Breena,

I like the reasoning behind your choice of major—it’s great to have a goal to fix something you found
broken. You might mention that you still find worth in schooling, otherwise you wouldn’t pursue it as a
career. It’s clear that you value what can be learned outside of school.

I’d love to hear more about your grandmother here.

Your essay has lots of passion, which makes it powerful.

See my marginal comments for further suggestion. If you want to include this in your port, revise it again
and then let’s go over it together.

I enjoyed reading this.