dumbing us down

dumbing us down
by john taylor gatto

ya Allah! this book is awesome!

excerpts that touched me:
the 7 things that teachers/schools teach:

1. confusion — everything is out of context
2. class position — through things like grades children get to “learn their place” very early on
3. indifference — when the bell rings, drop everything/thought and go to your next class. it — whatever it is — doesn’t matter. the bell does.
4. emotional dependency — through “stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors, and disgraces, I teach kids to surrender their will to the predestined chain of command”.
5. intellectual dependency — “It is the most important lesson, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make meaning in our lives.”
6. provisional self-esteem — people need to be told what they are worth vice self-evaluation
7. one can’t hide — constant surveillance and denial of privacy is a means of [mind] control…”children will follow a private drummer if you can’t get them into a uniformd marching band”

a few powerful, effective and cheap ways to educate our children:

• independent time/study: it’s the key to self-knowledge
• community service: experiences of acting unselfishly and responsibly
• adventures and experience
• large doses of privacy and solitude
• apprenticeships

as opposed to being confined in a building with people your same age and/or ability,
forced to think about the same thing at the same time in the same way,
“the only way to become fully human “is to” fully participate in a complex range of human affairs.” (p. 52)

“the deepest purposes of…networks is to regulate and to make uniform…the logic of family and community is to give scope to variety around a central theme…”(p. 64)

and i haven’t even finished yet…

the website:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/index.htm

and an NPR interview
August 25, 2003 · Modern-day debates over public school often focus on issues such as class size, test scores or bilingual education. John Taylor Gatto says the real problem is school itself. Join NPR’s Neal Conan for a discussion with Gatto. Hear why the former New York City teacher of the year says schooling gets in the way of education. Guests:

John Taylor Gatto

• Author of The Underground History of American Education and the lead essay, “Against Schools,” in the September issue of Harper’s Magazine
• Former New York City teacher of the year.

Edward Humes

• Author, “School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a Top American High School (Harcourt, 2003).