Our education system is far from perfect. There are plenty of educational failures that can be blamed for personal and societal failures. But, there are also many people who have a teacher in high school, or college, or a course they took that ultimately changed their lives for the better. In the "Learning Power" section of
Rereading America we have been able the contrast very different writings that have detailed some of the struggles and successes of our schools.
Upon first comparison, it would be easy to see the similarities between Michael Moore's "Idiot Nation" and John Taylor Gatto's "Against School". However, Gatto is a much more believable and credible source, and makes his argument in a much more constructive manner. He describes how our school system was doomed from the start, because of it's origins to "military state of Prussia". Gatto was a life long educator, and his critique seems to come from a true desire to fix the system, rather than in Moore's case, a miserable failure who wants company. Mike Rose's "I Just Wanna Be Average" goes another step in the positive direction by showing that even in a broken system it just takes one good teacher and a small amount of student initiative to allow somebody to break through and achieve.
In education, as in most situation in life, we will reap what we sew. Education is not, and never will be perfect. We have the responsibility to get from it what we need. These writings are good examples of people that believe their happiness or their success is another's responsibility. And, on the flip side, in Rose's case we read of somebody taking the initiative to create their own destiny.
