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Gatto's "against school" paper demonstrates the disconnect between teachers and students; students are interested in what they are interested in, and for the most part, teachers are only interested in what they are teaching so far as it carries them to a paycheck. He goes on to talk about the virtual imprisonment of school, where students are herded together for hours on end, day after day, for over a decade. He asks the important question that so many are afraid to consider; is school necessary? He points out that historically, it hasn't been. There have been a number of successful people in American that gained success without ever graduating from a school. He emphasizes that schooling was put into effect by adults who had essentially gone without schooling themselves as a form of control over youth. What better chance would there be to manipulate children en masse? Schooling as a system is a way for the administration of a country to force-feed the upcoming generation all their own values and concepts, barring any kind of change or true progression (as opposed to the 'progress' the officials declare.)

My own response to this has to start with agreement. Gatto knows precisely, from a first-person account, f how school is a system put in place to bend the student's will to the will of their handlers, the teachers and ultimately, society. However, due to school being seen as a right of passage by now, no one has stopped to question the system and possibly seek to change or abandon it. People make movies out of schooling, make quasi-mockerys of the system, and sometimes totally tear on it. however, for all of this, school remains a solid, virtually unopposed system of control. Why? because with all of the media focused around it, it is fairly common to register any opposition as comical and misguided at best. Of course school is good for you, it prepares you for life. If you try and counter that with historical evidence of people adequately prepared for life without any school, you are battered with ridicule for naming 'special cases' and the supposed fact that not everyone can do as others have done. I would argue that this only true because we've had it beaten into us that we can't. Truth is that people are scared. Society is such a large construct focused on schooling that it could make it unbearably difficult for you to live without schooling at this point. Realistically speaking, money controls most of everything we need. Shelter, food, water. To get a job that can keep you afloat in this day and age requires, for most, a diploma.

Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" focuses on the teacher-student relationships in schools. He speaks of how teachers are simply narrators preaching to a receptive choir, stating that schooling is a kind of "depository system", where teachers are the depositors and students, the depositories. Studnets are taught to memorize and retain information, accepting what they are told as knowledge. Freire argues that in this form of learning, hwere students are not encouraged to question, to be curious, they cannot be human. The focus of knowledge, true knowledge, is "invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other."

Freire's text has a more focused depiction than Gatto's, but follows similar lines. The teacher is the god in the classroom, and the students are made to be worshippers. Teachers are supposedly infallible and all-knowing, making us students mere vessels for their heavenly knowdelge. Schools consciously focus that kind of thinking into classrooms in order to have obedient, orderly students. By allowing now room for questioning, the schools accomplish what Gatto has already stated- breeding new lines of "perfect citizens" who don't defect from societal preaching. If someone is taught to accept and never challenge, they are easy to manipulate and sway, meaning that those in power can stay in power, and those without never question the authority of those with it. A resigned populace is the most dangerous, because they provide manpower for the elite to stand behind. If everyone is bred into submission, then they never pose a threat to anyone above them.

The interview with Lisa Delpitt contains some very good points. This is one of the few people in the world that seem to be taking the fight against schooling to a new front, establishing coalitions to free the minds of students and encourage genuine thinking as opposed to repetition and recital. Her focus on the arts as a way of discovering a child's inherent brilliance is a delightfully refreshing way to approach a child's interests and strengths. If a student finds interest in what they are doing, they are more likely to focus more energy on it and therefore demonstrate their abilities better. Delpitt also speaks about how it is necessary for a teacher to be open with their students, to be emotionally available. I'm not entirely sure how effective that might be; the student would certainly be more interested in their classes when they feel personally connected to their teacher, but at the same time, they wind up leaving that teacher as they move up in grade. They may take with them a newfound appreciation for learning, but they would have to reconnect with every new teacher along their way.