Freire&Gatto

I think Gatto and Freire have very similar opinions on education. They both think the entire system is terrible and completely wrong. Gatto speaks about the teachers being bored and blaming the students for their bad teaching and so on. Freire talks about how the students and teachers should be equals and learn from each other. they agree in the sense that they both think education is being delivered in the wrong ways but don't agree on the way they think it should be delivered. Freire believes that children should be allowed to come to conclusions on their own vs. being taught to memorize a set curriculum. he thinks that students curiosity and creativity are being stifled by the teacher student relationship. I personally did not agree with his method or logic. it reminded me more of a nature walk plan instead of an educational plan. Gatto talks about teachers boredom and lifelessness of their teaching, and goes on to talk about what school is trying to shape kids into through their authority and conformity. He go's on to talk about six main points of what schools are doing to their kids. "Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority" "This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible." "School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records" "Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further" " Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments" " a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor". this I find to be very true and interesting, although It does not coincide with the beliefs of freire.