While I agree with many of Gatto’s points, I believe that parts of this article are far-fetched. He starts out by addressing how both students and teachers alike operate within institutions where “boredom and childishness were the natural state of affairs,” and I agree that this is a widespread problem that plagues our nation’s school system today. I personally have had teachers that have been fired over departing from standard curriculums and instead imposing more intellectual discussions, class debates, and life lessons, and I have grown up in a metro area where many of the schools are struggling to find students and teachers alike that express a passion for education.

However, I view these widespread problems as flaws within our education system that we need to work to change, and not valid reason to throw schooling out the window. While Gatto’s argument that formal schooling is unnecessary to achieve success is certainly valid, most of the people whom he references – Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, and Margaret Mead are examples – he fails to account for the vast changes our society has undergone since they were alive. Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century, our country has undergone rapid digitalization, and with that a skill biased technological change that greatly increased the demand for skilled workers and decreased the demand for unskilled workers. While our education system is far from perfect, it is still the best way to ensure success and stability for millions of Americans.

Lastly, many of the “purposes” of modern schooling that Gatto draws upon from Principles of Secondary Education are, quite frankly, ridiculous. Most notably, the “selective function” that Gatto elaborates on, and while it is disturbing I completely reject the idea that a purpose of modern schooling is to “help things along by consciously attempting to improve breeding stock.” While I fully acknowledge the fact that students who do well in school are more likely to attend more selective colleges and universities, claiming that schools serve as a way of enforcing natural selection is nearly comical and, as can be seen throughout our country, is not even remotely true. While I agree with Gatto entirely that our school system is flawed, I believe that there are ways to combat the problem at hand and create a more inclusive, intellectual education system, rather than plainly advocating against the need for school as a whole.

While there are countless flawed elements of schooling, I do not think that every school’s goal is to sort, rank, and eventually eliminate the “unfit.” Schooling’s purpose is not to turn children into “servants.” A person who graduates high school is a person better enabled and equipped for the demands of a meritocratic society. In America, where it is increasingly necessary to have high level degrees in order to reach a position of success, schooling is a threshold that people must cross in order to have access to that opportunity, not to become subservient.

In a vacuum, a meritocracy is a fair system that can be accessible to everyone, but this is obviously not the case. Gatto ignores in his argument the political and social conditions that prevent people from even reaching, or staying at the high school level in the first place. For example, the quality of public education being largely dependent on income-levels in that district. This factor, as one example, shows that the problem with education-based meritocracy is not solely that it ranks and sorts people, but that some people are prematurely and unfairly set up to be ranked and sorted lower.

Gatto’s argument does not apply to the Williams education. Yes, there are political and financial obstacles for many people already at Williams, but that does not prove Gatto’s point that schooling equals submitting to an unfair system of ranking. To reiterate: an education at Williams, as a piece of the meritocratic system, would make sense and be fair if not for political and social factors outside of education that predetermine people’s ability to reach success.

I think it is both important to recognize the inherent benefits of schooling while simultaneously recognizing its flaws/drawbacks. To say that schooling is not necessarily important to our success or helpful to our daily life would be incorrect, especially in today’s world. Gatto’s examples are certainly valid, and other ones like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates would serve his claim. But in today’s world, schooling is certainly still very relevant and important to one’s success, as are the non-school related activities Gatto would support.

It is important that I clarify my definition of “success.” I look at it more along Havel’s lines – not in some monetary or status-based fashion but instead in terms of personal growth, satisfaction, and personal development. As such, as I’ve already said, school is still crucially important. It is one’s foundation. It opens doors to new pathways, to new topics, and to people. However, much like Havel’s essay towards the end, human development and general knowledge is just as important to one’s own success. This sort of knowledge does not come from school and does come from explicitly non-academic arenas, including but not limited to clubs, sports, arts, business/entrepreneurship, etc. As such, I will finish by saying both school and literal extra-curricular are equally important to success as I so define it.

“George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products of a school system, and not one of them was ever ‘graduated’ from a secondary school…

…We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of “success” as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, ‘schooling,’ but historically that isn’t true in either an intellectual or a fi- nancial sense.”

John Taylor Gatto paints a rather grim picture of the prospects and possibilities denied by schooling (as opposed to the benefits of receiving an education). Although not all of us attended the sort of public schools described by Gatto in the piece, we have all, in some sense, been schooled or accepted schooling, necessarily, in order to arrive at a place like Williams. At the same time, the evidence suggests a second, more nuanced possibility, namely that while most of participate in schooling in order to have “better lives,” our participation comes at a cost, both financial and political. We rein in our freedom in the perhaps dim hope of becoming “successful,” however defined.

Take this assignment as a provocation.  What is your assessment of a meritocracy premised on the ceaseless pursuit of ranking and distinction?  Does a context like Williams—or even our class!—reinforce the claims being made in the piece?

Please keep your answers short (no more than 250 words, if you can!).  Post your reply using the “New Post” feature (but title it using your own creativity).  Make sure to tag it as “First Blog.”  Remember to post a reply-to-a-reply by Monday.  Simply scroll through the entries and reply to whichever one catches your eye!

Iran celebrates the thirty-ninth anniversary of the overthrow of the Shah this month, ten days of celebration and remembrance to affirm that the revolution in Iran is a living revolution, the past a forever prelude to the present.

My thoughts on the annual celebrations follow, written in February 2010, less than a year after the suppression of the 2009 Green Movement. A little weathered, but I suspect that the many uses of the Revolution described below still hold true.