On July 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy, stated in Proclamation 3422 that we as a nation need to “think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.”. That was 55 years ago and the education system has changed, in some ways for the better and many for the worst. John Taylor Gatto and Jean-Jacques Rousseau have substantial views of the education system, and both have similar and differing ideas of what the school system does, doesn’t and should do to better children and society. It is clear that there needs to be change in the current school system but it’s easier said…show more content… Again both Gatto and Rousseau have the same belief that children should be able to learn on their own. Rousseau beings the issue up many times first when he says, “A man is not planted in one place like a tree, to stay there the rest of his life, and to pass from one extreme to another you must travel twice as far as he who starts half-way.”(3). He also shows his views on education materials, Rousseau makes it clear that he “hates books; they only teach us to talk about things things we know nothing about.”(20). Gatto also agrees with Rousseau, he thinks that “People have to be allowed to make their own mistakes and to try again, or they will never master themselves, although they may well seem to be competent when they have in fact only memorize or imitated someone else’s performance.” (xxxv). Rousseau thinks that the ideal school system would not “Give scholars no verbal lessons; he should be taught by experience alone; never punish him, for he does not know what it is to do wrong; never make him say “Forgive me,” for he does not know how to do you wrong.”(8). Our current school system is nothing like Rousseau's ideal system, in our system everything is taught out of an outdated textbook and the students has no interaction with the material they are…show more content… To go along with Rousseau’s ideas that scholars should not be taught through verbal lessons could possibly be a an easy change all the educator has to do is let the student learn from its experiences. But Rousseau’s stance on books would not be an easy change. Yes, we could just throw out all book but then how else will a child learn if there are no book and no verbal lessons? Gatto thinks that “We will discard standardized testing entirely but not standards of high quality. Standardization cripples imagination and imagination has always been the real driving engine of our powerful economy.”(Gatto 153) but that what would be a proper way to test a student on his/her knowledge without a biased perspective. It is very difficult to change the school system fast it would need years of developing and the government would need to find out when they are going to make this change so it will not affect other students at higher grade
