Too Busy to Learn

In “Why Schools Don’t Educate” John Gatto uses this persuasive article to communicate his thesis of how television and the American school system has caused multiple pathologies to our youth. The context behind this story is that John Gatto was a very profound teacher, that won teacher of the year three times, that wrote multiple articles addressing similar issues about education. The arrangement of this article begins very straight forward by explaining the amount of free time along with the average amount of hours a kid spends watching television. He then explains how television and other types of entertainment eliminate the amount of free time children have. He then moves to his purpose, which is that this has caused many pathologies and characteristics in children like materialistic, no curiosity, lack of compassion, dependent, and have no sense of the past relating to the future. Gatto has a very bold and academic style throughout this article. He has a distinct opinion about that is comes across like he has no doubt that this is what causes these issues in children. The vocabulary that is used is a prime example of why this is an academic article. The audience that Gatto was trying to inform is everyone about this conflict. Everyone is applied to this weather you are in school, have children, in the television industry, or in the school system.
I believe that Gatto raises a valid point in this article. It is undeniable that television has caused children to have shortened attention spans, are more likely to imitate the things that they see on television. However, I am not convinced that all of these problems have resulted from kids spend their time on abstractions. There are activities that increase important skills that kids need like socialization, team work, musical activities, etc. The only point that I outright agree with Gatto on is that kids should not watch as much television.