https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEWPbTad_Q
I’ve taught public school for 26 years but I just can’t do it anymore. For years I asked the local school board and superintendent to let me teach a curriculum that doesn’t hurt kids, but they had other fish to fry. So I’m going to quit, I think.
I’ve come slowly to understand what it is I really teach: A curriculum of confusion, class position, arbitrary justice, vulgarity, rudeness, disrespect for privacy, indifference to quality, and utter dependency. I teach how to fit into a world I don’t want to live in.
I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t train children to wait to be told what to do; I can’t train people to drop what they are doing when a bell sounds; I can’t persuade children to feel some justice in their class placement when there isn’t any, and I can’t persuade children to believe teachers have valuable secrets they can acquire by becoming our disciples. That isn’t true.
Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents.
An exaggeration? Hardly. Parents aren’t meant to participate in our form of schooling, rhetoric to the contrary. My orders as schoolteacher are to make children fit an animal training system, not to help each find his or her personal path.
The whole blueprint of school procedure is Egyptian, not Greek or Roman. It grows from the faith that human value is a scarce thing, represented symbolically by the narrow peak of a pyramid.
That idea passed into American history through the Puritans. It found its “scientific” presentation in the bell curve, along which talent supposedly apportions itself by some Iron Law of biology.
It’s a religious idea and school is its church. New York City hires me to be a priest. I offer rituals to keep heresy at bay. I provide documentation to justify the heavenly pyramid.
Socrates foresaw that if teaching became a formal profession something like this would happen. Professional interest is best served by making what is easy to do seem hard; by subordinating laity to priesthood. School has become too vital a jobs project, contract-giver and protector of the social order to allow itself to be “re-formed.” It has political allies to guard its marches.
That’s why reforms come and go-without changing much. Even reformers can’t imagine school much different.
David learns to read at age four; Rachel, at age nine: In normal development, when both are 13, you can’t tell which one learned first — the five-year spread means nothing at all. But in school I will label Rachel “learning disabled” and slow David down a bit, too.
For a paycheck, I adjust David to depend on me to tell him when to go and stop. He won’t outgrow that dependency. I identify Rachel as discount merchandise, “special education.” After a few months she’ll be locked into her place forever.
In 26 years of teaching rich kids and poor, I almost never met a “learning disabled” child; hardly ever met a “gifted and talented” one, either. Like all school categories, these are sacred myths, created by the human imagination. They derive from questionable values we never examine because they preserve the temple of schooling.
That’s the secret behind short-answer tests, bells, uniform time blocks, age grading, standardization, and all the rest of the school religion punishing our nation.
There isn’t a right way to become educated; there are as many ways as fingerprints. We don’t need state-certified teachers to make education happen–that probably guarantees it won’t.
How much more evidence is necessary? Good schools don’t need more money or a longer year; they need real free-market choices, variety that speaks to every need and runs risks. We don’t need a national curriculum, or national testing either. Both initiatives arise from ignorance of how people learn, or deliberate indifference to it.
I can’t teach this way any longer. If you hear of a job where I don’t have to hurt kids to make a living, let me know. Come fall I’ll be looking for work, I think.
John Taylor Gatto wrote this article for The Wall Street Journal, July 25th, 1991. Gatto was a New York State Teacher of the Year. An advocate for school reform, Gatto’s books includeDumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, the Underground History of American Education and Weapons of Mass Instruction.
John Taylor Gatto really tells it the way it is. I wish I'd discovered him before my very brief but extremely painful venture into the world of teaching.The rhetoric from the Archons of education would have you believe that we live in a world of 'child-centered' education where lessons are tailored for the needs of each individual student but the truth is that these needs come well down the list of priorities of a teacher. Teaching to the test and satisfying the insane data-driven demands of superiors far exceeds helping a child to realize their dreams.
I finished school 30 years ago, and I've always been amazed when I see what my kids are learning just how much lower the standard of education is now compared to back then. You can see that slow dumbing down taking place over the generations.
I read the book 1984 again recently, and it really is a blue print of what's been going on in the western world since WW2. Slow compression of the English language into as few words as possible, control of how history is recorded, give the masses hope with the lottery, cameras everywhere, reduced freedom of speech.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
Thank you for sharing this article. Being the mom of an almost 9 year old boy who still can't read and has been labeled "learning disabled" and removed from a traditional classroom, the education system is a force I struggle with. While in the beginning I was admittedly relieved for the extra support and help for my son I can't help but you question if this is really helping in the long run. The social stigma of a learning disability coupled with the fact that my fiance and I both seem compelled to add pressure on him tip hurry up and learn for our own selfish reasons I'm sure will have lasting psychological effects on the child. But we can't seem to help ourselves and what the fuck to do about it? The fact is that the school system is the socially acceptable method of education and education is the socially acceptable measure of success. Although I see it for the damaging trap it is, I lack the courage and the confidence it let alone the resources to buck the traditional methods and take the responsibility for his education upon myself. Who am I to question the system when through the societal lense I am minimally successful with a high school education? I do what I can at home to teach and encourage. I did my best to encourage his social and creative skills. I share this because I know I'm not the only conspiratorial minded person caught in our three dimensional trap just trying to do the right fucking thing within the construct of our societal design. Yeah maybe I could go off grid, live off the land and homeschool my children but lack the constitution. So in the meantime I do the best I fucking can.
Hi asterydthewitch,
you're absolutely right that the education system is the socially acceptable route but it is by no means the only or the best route for preparing a child to enter adult life.
In truth, academic education only gives children a very narrow range of skills and only the top few percent of the academically gifted children will benefit from these skills to become the doctors,engineers, scientists etc. of the future. But it is the very few geniuses squeezed from the public school system that the elite need to invent their AI, automate their factories and create their new perfect race. Thus academic education is offered as the only funded option by governments but the human world turns on many other skills and abilities besides.
In my brief sojourn as a maths teacher, I had more that my fair share of 'bottom sets', classes made up mostly of children with special needs, and it broke my heart that I had to teach them concepts that were well beyond their level because the system demanded it. These children were by no means stupid and certainly had skills and abilities which remained unexplored due to the strictures of their education: they did not fail the system, the system failed them.
My best advice for your situation would be to try and squeeze as much out of the system in order to improve your son's basic 3R's (reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic). Special needs children usually bring extra funding with them to a school so they are valuable - this may give you some leverage in negotiating your child's needs with them. Outside of academia, try to find something that interests your son. Maybe buy a plant for him to tend (gardening) or a small pet (caring professions) or going hiking in the outdoors (farming, soldiering, forestry...) or a lego set (building). Once you find something that lights the fire, you'll be rushing to keep up 🙂 Most of the great range of skills available to us humans are completely outside the remit of the average school and they all pay well if you're good at them!
Thank you kindly for taking the time to respond. Those are all very excellent suggestions. I didn't really consider that I have some leveraging power because of his status. My son does have a massive collection of Legos. If he can someday combine his creative lego skills with his skill at talking to and picking up chicks that are way too old for him I'm sure he'll have a bright and successful future doing whatever he desires despite the failings of the education system.
Thank you again.
Blessed Be
I worked in a democratic free school for a year while working on my thesis. It was a "home-shool cooperative" as a legal construct and the children were as self directed as possible. I basically pointed them towards resources, had conversations with them about their passions and curiousities, and made sure the place didn't burn down but otherwise just stayed out of their way. The children made the rules, and enforced and modified them as needed through group democratic process. I saw children become geniuses simply by leaving them alone and empowering them to act on their ideas; not to mention the emotional literacy that comes from solving problems in a group setting.
A person who is very interesting to study in regards to education (and healthcare) is Ivan Illich, author of Deschooling Society. Very cool ideas for community based inter-generational autonomous educational models.
Great thread and I'm definitely going to check out Ivan for THC. I've wanted to do a "schooling solutions" show, but it's sometimes a bit hard.
Thanks for this great thread. Speaking of education, I recently graduated from university after spending 6 years of struggle. For one thing, I feel genuine grattitude for even having been given the opportunity to attend Uni in a foreign city (I'm originally from Japan but moved to Vancouver BC for my studies). But I can say one thing for sure, my most valuable college experience wasn't from attending those classes, but rather from having lived those years with my various roommates, some of them who became my tight-friends sharing all the love and support that's so needed to grow up. For sure there were a few classes that have really challenged my way of thinking. But the bulk of my personality came from being with people and talking to them, and dare I say, a brief period of dabbling into psychedelics which turned out to be both therapeutic and mind-cultivating.
When I was in elementary school, my mother put us into a Steiner school while living in France. Only very recently did I connect the dots together when I read a short but fascinating book about Rudolph Steiner, from whom this system is inspired. All I remember from my experience was that it was drastically different from my previous schools: everyone would wear his/her own blouse during the day, the head teacher would teach most of the fields (bible study, history, arithmetic, grammar) except maybe for german/english lessons. Focus was put on creative expression, including Eurythmy, or dance; drawing & painting; knitting/crochet classes; building mud ovens to bake our breads; class trips to local bakeries and once, staying on a farm). At the time however, I didn't enjoy it that much, since I was more into watching films & playing video-game than in creative/spiritual matters. We use to jokingly call it a cult. So after a year or so, I left for the public french school system.
Today, when I look up Waldorf-Steiner schools, I am genuinely curious in the way their curriculum is designed, but yet when you look up the tuition costs for such schools, it's been turned into this exclusive, almost elitist cast. One such school in Vancouver costs $13,000 per semester per students. I'm all for holistic learning and creativity but that just seems to put the nail in the coffin. Still, reading about how Rudolph Steiner originally started his schools in Germany, it gives me faith that it is possible to go back to more organic ways of teaching.
Last but not least, one thing the public school system did to me (and to many others I'm sure) is utter chaos, suffering and trauma in mathematics. I was always the last one in my maths classes in high school, and had genuine confusion about the various methodologies.
Today, my interest in holistic systems and sacred geometry, I feel like Math is more of a language imbued in everything we see and interact, perhaps more so in the analog world than the digital ironically. I've come to understand that geometry is numbers (and frequency) and vice versa, and that you could explain concepts and systems entirely via geometry. And I often think to myself, if I had been taught that way of looking at maths, and applying those concepts to explore the world, I probably would've paid more attention to it. And though it's never too late to get back on, I still haven't made the move to really delve in to math again (speak about trauma!)
The waldroff school near me, in Ann Arbor is extremely elite. Parents working for DARPA and shit, elite neo-liberal types. Alot of the techno-elite crowd are very into Waldorf ed now. Alot of good things, methodologically, but they still have their far share of dogma. I have run with a lot of anthroposophy/biodynamic folks. I have laughed as atheists send their kids, since it is unarguably one of the best options, and then their kids start spouting esoteric christian angel magic...ha ha ha...for some reason; in both the waldorf and biodynamics community, they are really shy about their history/origins, and really try to distance themselves from the metaphysical aspects publicly. Don't get me wrong, its probably not the best idea to recruit people by telling them upfront about burying a ram's horn full of manure to collect celestial energies and then turning it into a homeopathic spray for the plants...or that children are inherently more magickal and able to see the gnomes all around, and shouldn't make any representational images or learn letters/reading until they are seven or older lest it negatively impact the development of their spiritual senses/imagination. But hey, that sure would get me wanting more...
TheCarlwood wrote: Great thread and I'm definitely going to check out Ivan for THC. I've wanted to do a "schooling solutions" show, but it's sometimes a bit hard.
He's dead now. He was primarily concerned with colonialism, and the impact of western influence on indigenous lifeways and ecologies (ironically, or perhaps nefariously he was also a Jesuit, always good for spice!). Here's a link where someone uploaded the text.
http://preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/intro.html
Its a bit academic, but a truly scathing and deep cultural critique of modern industrial schooling. His writings on the medical system are also mind-blowing/life changing. Understanding the word "iatrogenesis" and related freely available stats will definitely get you thinking twice before going to the doctors...also some good philosophic riffing on vaccines as a ritual rite of the technocratic capitalist state.
"Introduction
I owe my interest in public education to Everett Reimer. Until we first met in Puerto Rico in 1958, I had never questioned the value of extending obligatory schooling to all people. Together we have come to realize that for most men the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school. The essays given at CIDOC and gathered in this book grew out of memoranda which I submitted to him, and which we discussed during 1970, the thirteenth year of our dialogue. The last chapter contains my afterthoughts on a conversation with Erich Fromm on Bachofen's Mutterrecht.
Since 1967 Reimer and I have met regularly at the Center for Intercultural Documentation (CIDOC) in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Valentine Borremans, the director of the Center, also joined our dialogue, and constantly urged me to test our thinking against the realities of Latin America and Africa. This book reflects her conviction that the ethos, not just the institutions, of society ought to be "deschooled."
Universal education through schooling is not feasible. It would be no more feasible if it were attempted by means of alternative institutions built on the style of present schools. Neither new attitudes of teachers toward their pupils nor the proliferation of educational hardware or software (in classroom or bedroom), nor finally the attempt to expand the pedagogue's responsibility until it engulfs his pupils' lifetimes will deliver universal education. The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing,
xx DESCHOOLING SOCIETY
and caring. We hope to contribute concepts needed by those who conduct such counterfoil research on education--and also to those who seek alternatives to other established service industries.
On Wednesday mornings, during the spring and summer of 1970, I submitted the various parts of this book to the participants in our CIDOC programs in Cuernavaca. Dozens of them made suggestions or provided criticisms. Many will recognize their ideas in these pages, especially Paulo Freire, Peter Berger, and JosŽ Maria Bulnes, as well as Joseph Fitzpatrick, John Holt, Angel Quintero, Layman Allen, Fred Goodman, Gerhard Ladner, Didier Piveteau, Joel Spring, Augusto Salazar Bondy, and Dennis Sullivan. Among my critics, Paul Goodman most radically obliged me to revise my thinking. Robert Silvers provided me with brilliant editorial assistance on Chapters 1, 3, and 6, which have appeared in The New York Review of Books.
Reimer and I have decided to publish separate views of our joint research. He is working on a comprehensive and documented exposition, which will be subjected to several months of further critical appraisal and be published late in 1971 by Doubleday & Company. Dennis Sullivan, who acted as secretary at the meetings between Reimer and myself, is preparing a book for publication in the spring of 1972 which will place my argument in the context of current debate about public schooling in the United States. I offer this volume of essays now in the hope that it will provoke additional critical contributions to the sessions of a seminar on "Alternatives in Education" planned at CIDOC in Cuernavaca for 1972 and 1973.
I intend to discuss some perplexing issues which are raised once we embrace the hypothesis that society can be deschooled; to search for criteria which may help us distinguish institutions which merit development because they support learning in a deschooled milieu; and to clarify those personal goals which would foster the advent of an Age of Leisure (schole) as opposed to an economy dominated by service industries."
