1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
-I believe when Gatto talks about this he is referring to schools prioritizing classes such as english, history, and math over music and art. Many students aren't even going into a career that has to do with mathematics, english, or history. Are they good to know? Yes. But do all careers require these things? Absolutely not.
An example from my experience in high school is when the school board was trying to cut choir and band. Now this was really confusing considering we had an incredible amount of students in both band and choir! It was all budget cuts and even though they probably didn't care what we had to say when we went to the school board meeting, we still fought. The arts program wasn't cut completely, yet we still had to adapt to changes.
2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
-When Gatto talks about conforming students he means that schools are trying to make everyone the same. That they're making them into little robots who can't think outside the box.
Honestly, I can't say my school has really done anything to conform their students but I know their are schools who do such things.
3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.
-Gatto is referring to the placement of students to see where the student lies academically. But you can never know if it's accurate or not. Some students are what you call "lazy geniuses" or maybe a student got lucky on some multiple choice questions.
In my high school we had something called the HSPE. Something we had to pass our sophomore year that required you to pass in Geometry, reading, and writing.
4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.
-Gatto is referring how schoosl don't really push their kids to do their best. They just pish them to the "average" and not to their full potential. Although their are AP classes, students usually take those by their choice and aren't really referred to them.
5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.
-Their are schools who definitely favor students. And some only care about the "smart" students and furthering their education
6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.
-Now Gatto is saying that this is all a vicious cycle and that nothing is going to change.
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