Natasha Gant
ENGL 1102-111
Perkins
February 7, 2013
Exploratory Essay
Walking into a large lecture class with about 150 students, everyone blends in with each
other. Not one student stands out. As I sit down I realize that in this class I am just a number; my
clicker is my identity. Modern students today are seen by many, including professors, as being
irresponsible, mediocre, and lacking originality.
Focusing on college students, seeing first-hand how they all seem the same. Is this the
reason for most students’ failure, their simplicity in the way that they think? Most importantly,
do all professors seem to have this same view on students? Apparently yes, most of the
professors see their students as a generation that conforms to be just like everyone else they
attend school with. As John Taylor Gatto said, “…an educational system deliberately designed to
produce mediocre-intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership
skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens- all in order to render the populace
manageable” (Gatto). This is a very strong, accusing statement but if it so happened to be true, is
it only going to get worse from here on? Will all the future imaginative and innovative
individuals be transformed into someone that never thinks outside of the box, someone that could
invent some of the best originations that the world has ever seen? Just pondering on that
statement makes me a little angry.
If a high school student decides to further their education to make a better life for
themselves are they really hurting themselves even more? Especially if they fail out, their money
and time will be wasted. Professor X, who works at a community college, stated what he
experienced with his students, “Remarkably few of my students can do well in these classes.
Students routinely fail; some fail multiple times, and some will never pass, because they cannot
write a coherent sentence” (Professor X). This statement to me reflects no hope for his future
students; he speaks so strongly of his students failing but hasn’t made an effort to actually make
a change for the future. He’s just as bad as his students; he clearly thinks that most of them are
bad students. So what makes a bad student and what makes a good worthy student?
According to Gatto, you can be a good student without actually being a student in a
school setting, “George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln?
Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products of a school system, and not one of
them graduated from a secondary school” (Gatto). The people that he named all made a
significant impact on our history, they all were very different. Whether they were good students
or not they seemed to turn out to be very successful individuals.
A ‘good student’ today can be seen as mediocre, they just do the work that is given to
them, and they memorize information so that they’ll do well on the tests. But being a good
student is more than just doing the work; school should teach you how to bring your creativity
out and how to think outside of the box. If that were the case by the time you got to college
everyone would at least have some differences that make students stand out from each other.
This would make professors be more hopeful for their students and help them enjoy teaching.
Students and professors are criticized throughout almost all of the articles that were read.
Mark Edmundsen wrote in his article As Lite Entertainment for Bored College Student, “Current
critics tend to think that liberal arts education have been invaded by professors with peculiar
ideas: deconstruction, lacanianism, feminism, queer theory” (Edmundsen 2). So it seems as
though both students and professors are the ones to blame. But students are taught by teachers, if
students are always in the same situations in school with the same people of course they’re going
to be products of what they’re around. Children soak up everything they hear and see; originality
can never come from individuals if it isn’t allowed to be expressed. College professors cannot
expect every single one of their students to be this original person with original ideas when they
were taught to do the opposite as a child.
There are so many aspects that have led to this generation being the way it is, starting
from a young child being taught to not be original to kids always wanting to be like each other.
Wearing the same clothes, listening to the same music, and if they don’t they are seen as weird
and an outcast. This generation is so sad, but there isn’t much one can do to change it as a whole.
If you realize that you aren’t being original, you have the power to change it but most go through
life not realizing that they are like every other person on this planet.
Original individuals are hard to find
Ready to copy ideas all the time
In a world with everyone alike
Good taste is simply hard to come by
In schools, they strip you of your individualism
Not one single student aware of it
All to produce an incompetent human body
Little knowledge to spark opinion
Incapable of starting a revolution
Time to thank your school system for unoriginality and
Your trusted government for allowing it
Works Cited
Edmundsen, Mark. “On the Uses of a Liberal Education.” Harper’s Magazine Sept. 1997: 39-49.
Print.
Gatto, John. “Against Schooling.” Harper’s Magazine June 2009. Web. 12 February 2013.
Professor X. “From the Basement of the Ivory Tower.” The Atlantic June 2008. Web. 12
February 2013.