Monday, May 21, 2012

Both Bradbury and Gatto are against traditional schooling in one way or another. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Bradbury expresses a disapproval of schooling through character Beatty saying "'Out of nursery, into college and back to nursery.'" By this Bradbury is trying to say that you start of strong in school. As a kid, you learn. You become educated, and then you hit a wall. You stop learning. If you stop learning and lose knowledge, then why go to school in the first place?
Gatto is also against the traditional school setting of  "...six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years." This forced schooling causes boredom, and clones according to Gatto. Not only are the students of traditional schooling bored from classes all day long, but the teachers are bored to. How can teachers get excited about teaching kids, if the kids don't care? It goes both ways though: why would a student care if a teacher doesn't? Gatto sums it up in saying that traditional schooling consists of "Laboratories of experimenting young minds, drill centers for habits and attitudes that corporate society demands." We're not teaching these kids: instead, we are grooming them to play a role in our society. "'School is shortened... Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts'"? Bradbury says through character Beatty again. Forget education: as long as people know how to play a helpful role to society, then we're all good.
Exactly what Gatto is against about traditional schooling is what Bradbury shows through the knowledge of character Beatty. Schools do nothing to create independent, thinking individuals according to both authors. Instead, schools produce mindless kids to do necessary jobs to keep society running as it is.

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