Is There More to the System?

What makes a good professor? Should one empower students or demean the ones who seem unfit to conform? Should classes be boring or should it be a lively atmosphere that engages students to think out of the box? These seem like obvious questions with one right answer, but if we look at texts by John Taylor Gatto or Mike Rose, even letting our eyes view movies like Dead Poets Society, the answer seems to have a broader perspective. So how should professors teach young pupils from all different backgrounds, should they or should they not force them to conform, meeting the standardized ways of today’s education system?

I met a teacher who instead of taking the narrow pathway of education, broadened the horizon; it’s as if her teaching ways mirrored those of the well-known character professor Keating in the movie Dead Poets Society. The Welton academy is just as Gatto described “…it is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to discard them if they don’t conform.” The twist that Mr. Keating brought was a new thought upon how a professor should educate young minds. From the bare back of these children to the books read for the classes, everything met the criteria of “conformity.” Watching this film it disgusts me to see how obedient the students are. The seal was broken on the first day of Mr. Keating’s’ class when he walked in and swiftly walked out whistling a cheery tone and encouraging the students to get up and out of the classroom. It carried on when Mr. Keating challenged the authors thoughts in a textbook the students had. After reading a mediocre introductory page, Keating ordered all the boys to rip all evidence of this demeaning passage. The headmaster thought this was ludacris; the story continues with Mr. Keating’s teaching ways being ridiculed, but that something you can read off of Spark notes.

On another note, what I’m trying to get to the bottom is was his teaching ways REALLY that insane that other faculty and even parents had to intervene? He inspired these boys, in the classroom, outside of the classroom, to critically think, to be an individual. But if the school system is really supposed to be a mimicked version of the Prussian system, then yes it was that insane, and it wasn’t to the extreme for others to get involved. I cannot sit here though and think that that is it. It can’t be all that there is to the education system of the 21^st century. We are in the future, the present right now, we cannot try to do things that were implemented hundreds of years ago. If we did that with every aspect of life I would be writing this with a feather pen and some ink; rewriting and rewriting till I spelled everything write and every punctuation was in the proper place. No, I think Mr. Keating was a proper teacher, he let his students do the thinking, instead of interpret conforming papers.

I haven’t always thought this way, in fact until last fall I didn’t even think about the ways teachers taught. I thought “okay this is just the way it is and has to be,” and sat through classes just taking in whatever knowledge was force feed to me. But I met this teacher, she was more like a friend, though. She was knew to Kohler. She graduated from Silver Lake as we will someday, but she has had many more years of experience. Kohler was the type of insutition (it was way more than just a public school) that focused on academics; if you really wanted to get something out of your tax dollars you invested your child’s life into academics. The academics were rigor and challenging, in fact everyone graduates and always goes onto college. When those who come back talk about college life they often comment on how easy it is compared to Kohler classes. Two teachers, Mrs. Good and Mrs. Krejcarek are often the center of attention. Both science teachers for the high school and both are the same teachers that John Taylor Gatto speak about. Of course but of those teachers along with every other, had they’re say about Mrs. Rozy. The first week of senior English was spent watching Dead Poets Society and after that we watched the textbook scene where they all ripped papers from a old textbook. Then we acted the same scene. Mrs. Rozy went around handing everyone a textbook, challenging everything Kohler stands for, she announced we would ourselves rip out all evidence of conforming school systems. And as we did.

So here I sit with my thoughts questions who is in the right and who is in the wrong, and why? Why should teachers try to force the same education and teaching ways upon every unique child? Can someone answer this because frankly I’m baffled. Until the day where someone can provide persuasive evidence in the ways that the education system really does benefit the whole I will shut up. For now I stand by teachers like Mrs. Rozy and Mr. Keating who teach revolutionary thoughts.