“Against School” by John Taylor Gatto is an article that attempts to persuade the reader and displays his point of view that he does not believe in our school system. Gatto believes that staying in the American schooling system for a certain amount of time, has supplied him with every reason to refer to it as a childish program. According to Gatto, people may see the key problem of schooling as boredom. Gatto supports his views by highlighting a significant number of successful Americans who did not go through the schooling system but turned out to be prolific, such as Abraham Lincoln. Gatto expresses in this short story “Against School” that he has experienced many students complaining of boredom in school.

Students were not interested in what was being taught because they often said the work was stupid and that they already knew it. This essay will analyze John Taylor Gatto’s main argument of why he does not believe in the current schooling system. John Taylor Gatto learned something important in life as a child, which was taught by his grandfather.

Gatto learned that being bored was an action that he was only responsible for doing. Gatto’s grandfather said that it was his own responsibility to learn and entertain himself. In this, he began using this lesson to entertain his students. In “Against School” Gatto begins by discussing his thoughts on whether the term “boredom” could be used to define the experience of a student. He explains that every time he asked his students in class why they were bored in school, the students felt that their teachers did not have the drive to learn more than what they teach.

They also tended not to know much about the subject they were presenting to the class.