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 |  | A brilliant book by New York State teacher of the year: John Taylor Gatto Dumbing Us Down - The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling This is a rare book worth reading cover to cover. It is important to read the entire book to appreciate what the author has to say. "The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions, but to destroy the capacity to form any." --Hannah Arendt Mr. Gatto explains that there are seven lessons that are universally taught. They constitute a national curriculum you pay for in more ways than you can imagine. He expresses it in the first person. Here is a summary: |
1. Confusion - Everything I teach is out of context. I teach too much. The orbiting of planets, the law of large numbers, slavery, adjectives, architectural drawing, dance, assemblies, etc. Everything I teach is out of context.
Ed. note: I have met so many college graduates whose heads are filled with academic mish-mash, but cannot focus, can't live without excessive stress, can't make a decent income, and can't have a stable relationship with the opposite sex. Even a wild animal can do that. 2.Class Position - I teach that students must stay in the class where they belong. If I do my job well, the kids can't even imagine themselves somewhere else, because I've shown them how to envy and fear the better classes and how to have contempt for the dumb classes. 3. Indifference - I teach children not to care too much about anything, even though they want to make it appear that they do. I do it by demanding that they become totally involved in my lessons, competing vigorously with each other for my favor. | | | 4.Emotional Dependency - By stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors and disgraces, I teach kids to surrender their will to the predestined chain of command. Rights may be granted or withheld by any authority without appeal, because rights do not exist inside a school- not even the right of free speech. Individuality is a contradiction of class theory. 5. Intellectual Dependency - Good students wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. It is the most important lesson, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives. 6. Provisional Self-Esteem - I teach that a kid's self-respect should depend on expert opinion. My kid's are constantly evaluated and judged. The lesson of report cards, grades, and tests is that children should not trust themselves or their parents but should instead rely on the evaluation of certified officials. People need to be told what they are worth. 7. One Can't Hide - I teach students they are always watched, that each is under constant | | | | surveillance by myself and my colleagues. There is no private time. I assign a type of extended schooling called "homework," so that the effect travels into private households, where students might otherwise use free time to learn something unauthorized from a parent, by exploration, or by apprenticing to some wise person in the neighborhood. Only a few people now can imagine a different way of doing things. "The kids have to learn to read and write, don't they?" "They have to learn to follow orders if they ever expect to keep a job." Prior to about 1850, schooling wasn't very important anywhere. We had it, but not too much of it, and only about as much as an individual wanted. People learned to read, write, and do arithmetic just fine anyway. Senator Kennedy's office released a paper that stated that prior to compulsory education the literacy rate was 98%, and after it, the figure never exceeded 91%. Reading, writing, and arithmetic only take about a hundred hours to transmit as long as the audience is eager and willing to learn. The trick is to wait until someone asks and then move fast while the mood is on. This book strikes at the heart of social dysfunction today. It is a critical piece of the puzzle that explains the high rate of mental illness, family dysfunction, violence, crime, drug addiction, income inequity, and the inability to grasp the solution to the defect in our democracy. | |
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