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Take Back Your Education
More and more people across America are waking up to the mismatch between what is taught in schools and what common sense tells us we need to know. What can you do about it?
Only you can educate you—and you can’t do it by memorizing. You have to find out who you are by experience and by risk-taking, then pursue your own nature intensely. School routines are set up to discourage you from self-discovery. People who know who they are make trouble for schools.
To know yourself, you have to keep track of your random choices, figure out your patterns, and use this knowledge to dominate your own mind. It’s the only way that free will can grow. If you avoid this, other minds will manipulate and control you lifelong.
One method people use to find out who they are becoming, before others do, is to keep a journal, where they log what attracts their attention, along with some commentary. In this way, you get to listen to yourself instead of listening only to others.
Another path to self-discovery that seems to have atrophied through schooling lies in finding a mentor. People aren’t the only mentors. Books can serve as mentors if you learn to read intensely, with every sense alert to nuances. Books can change your life, as mentors do.
I experienced precious little of such thinking in 30 years of teaching in the public junior high schools of Manhattan’s ultra-progressive Upper West Side. I was by turns amused, disgusted, and disbelieving when confronted with the curriculum—endless drills of fractions and decimals, reading assignments of science fiction, Jack London, and one or two Shakespeare plays for which the language had been simplified. The strategy was to kill time and stave off the worst kinds of boredom that can lead to trouble—the trouble that comes from being made aware that you are trapped in irrelevancy and powerless to escape.
Institutionalized schooling, I gradually realized, is about obedience in exchange for favors and advantages: Sit where I tell you, speak when I allow it, memorize what I’ve told you to memorize. Do these things, and I’ll take care to put you above your classmates.
Wouldn’t you think everyone could figure out that school “achievement tests” measure no achievement that common sense would recognize? The surrender required of students meets the primary duty of bureaucratic establishment: to protect established order.
It wasn’t always this way. Classical schooling—the kind I was lucky enough to have growing up—teaches independent thought, appreciation for great works, and an experience of the world not found within the confines of a classroom. It was an education that is missing in public schools today but still exists in many private schools—and can for you and your children, too, if you take time to learn how to learn.
On the Wrong Side of the Tracks
In the fall of 2009, a documentary film will be released by a resident of my hometown of Monongahela, Pennsylvania. Laura Magone’s film, “One Extraordinary Street,” centers on a two-mile-long road that parallels polluted Pigeon Creek. Park Avenue, as it’s called, is on the wrong side of the tracks in this little-known coal-mining burg of 4,500 souls.
So far Park Avenue has produced an Army chief of staff, the founder of the Disney Channel, the inventor of the Nerf football, the only professional baseball player to ever strike out all 27 enemy batsmen in a nine-inning game, a winner of the National Book Award, a respected cardiologist, Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana, and the writer whose words you’re reading.
Did the education Monongahela offered make all these miracles possible? I don’t know. It was an education filled with hands-on experience, including cooking the school meals, serving them individually (not cafeteria-style) on tablecloths, and cleaning up afterward. Students handled the daily maintenance, including basic repairs. If you weren’t earning money and adding value to the town by the age of seven, you were considered a jerk. I swept out a printing office daily, sold newspapers, shoveled snow, cut grass, and sold lemonade.
Classical schooling isn’t psychologically driven. The ancient Greeks discovered thousands of years ago that rules and ironclad procedures, when taken too seriously, burn out imagination, stifle courage, and wipe the leadership clean of resourcefulness. Greek education was much more like play, with studies undertaken for their own sake, to satisfy curiosity. It assumed that sane children want to grow up and recognized that childhood ends much earlier than modern society typically allows.
We read Caesar’s Gallic Wars—in translation between fifth and seventh grades and, for those who wanted, in Latin in ninth and tenth grades. Caesar was offered to us not as some historical relic but as a workshop in dividing and conquering superior enemies. We read The Odyssey as an aid to thinking about the role of family in a good life, as the beating heart of meaning.
Monongahela’s education integrated students, from first grade on, into the intimate life and culture of the town. Its classrooms were free of the familiar tools of official pedagogy—dumbed-down textbooks, massively irrelevant standardized tests, insanely slowed-down sequences. It was an education rich in relationships, tradition, and respect for the best that’s been written. It was a growing-up that demanded real achievement.
The admissions director at Harvard College told The New York Times a few years ago that Harvard admits only students with a record of distinctive accomplishment. I instantly thought of the Orwellian newspeak at my own Manhattan school where achievement tests were the order of the day. What achievement? Like the noisy royalty who intimidated Alice until her head cleared and she realized they were only a pack of cards, school achievement is just a pack of words.
A Deliberate Saboteur
As a schoolteacher, I was determined to act as a deliberate saboteur, and so for 30 years I woke up committed to making the system hurt in some small way and to changing the destiny of children in my orbit in a large way.
Without the eclectic grounding in classical training that I had partially absorbed, neither goal would have been possible. I set out to use the classical emphasis on qualities and specific powers. I collected from every kid a list of three powers they felt they already possessed and three weaknesses they might like to remedy in the course of the school year.
I pledged to them that I’d do my level best inside the limitations the institution imposed to make time, advice, and support available toward everyone’s private goals. There would be group lessons as worthwhile as I could come up with, but my priorities were the opportunities outside the room, outside the school, even outside the city, to strengthen a power or work on a weakness.
I let a 13-year-old boy who dreamed of being a comic-book writer spend a week in the public library—with the assistance of the librarian—to learn the tricks of graphic storytelling. I sent a shy 13-year-old girl in the company of a loudmouth classmate to the state capitol—she to speak to her local legislator, he to teach her how to be fearless. Today, that shy girl is a trial attorney.
If you understand where a kid wants to go—the kid has to understand that first—it isn’t hard to devise exercises, complete with academics, that can take them there.
But school often acts as an obstacle to success. To go from the confinement of early childhood to the confinement of the classroom to the confinement of homework, working to amass a record entitling you to a “good” college, where the radical reduction of your spirit will continue, isn’t likely to build character or prepare you for a good life.
I quit teaching in 1991 and set out to discover where this destructive institution had come from, why it had taken the shape it had, how it managed to beat back its many critics for a century while growing bigger and more intrusive, and what we might do about it.
School does exactly what it was created to do: It solves, or at least mitigates, the problem of a restless, ambitious labor pool, so deadly for capitalist economies; and it confronts democracy’s other deadly problem—that ordinary people might one day learn to un-divide themselves, band together in the common interest, and take control of the institutions that shape their lives.
The present system of institutionalized schooling is a product of two or three centuries of economic and political thinking that spread primarily from a militaristic state in the disunited Germanies known as Prussia. That philosophy destroyed classical training for the common people, reserving it for those who were expected to become leaders. Education, in the words of famous economists (such as William Playfair), captains of industry (Andrew Carnegie), and even a man who would be president (Woodrow Wilson), was a means of keeping the middle and lower classes in line and of keeping the engines of capitalism running.
In a 1909 address to New York City teachers, Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said, “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity to forgo the privilege of a liberal education.”
My job isn’t to indict Woodrow or anyone else, only to show you how inevitable the schools you hate must be in the economy and social order we’re stuck with. Liberal education served the ancient Greeks well until they got too rich to allow it, just as it served America the same way until we got too rich to allow it.
What Can You Do About All This? A lot.
You can make the system an offer it can’t refuse by doing small things, individually.
You can publicly oppose—in writing, in speech, in actions—anything that will perpetuate the institution as it is. The accumulated weight of your resistance and disapproval, together with that of thousands more, will erode the energy of any bureaucracy.
You can calmly refuse to take standardized tests. Follow the lead of Melville’s moral genius in Bartleby, the Scrivener, and ask everyone, politely, to write: “I prefer not to take this test” on the face of the test packet.
You can, of course, homeschool or unschool. You can inform your kids that bad grades won’t hurt them at all in life, if they actually learn to master valuable skills and put them on offer to the world at large. And you can begin to free yourself from the conditioned fear that not being accepted at a “good” college will preclude you from a comfortable life. If the lack of a college degree didn’t stop Steve Jobs (Apple), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Michael Dell (Dell Computer), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA), Warren Avis (Avis Rent-a-Car), Ted Turner (CNN), and so many others, then it shouldn’t be too hard for you to see that you’ve been bamboozled, flummoxed, played for a sap by the propaganda mills of schooling. Get rid of your assumptions.
If you are interested in education, I’ve tried to show you a little about how that’s done, and I have faith you can learn the rest on your own. Schooling operates out of an assumption that ordinary people are biologically or psychologically or politically inferior; education assumes that individuals are sovereign spirits. Societies that don’t know that need to be changed or broken.
Once you take responsibility for your own education, you’ll join a growing army of men and women all across America who are waking up to the mismatch schools inflict on the young—a mismatch between what common sense tells you they’ll need to know, and what is actually taught. You’ll have the exquisite luxury of being able to adapt to conditions, to opportunities, to the particular spirits of your kids. With you as educational czar or czarina, feedback becomes your friend and guide.
I’ve traveled 3 million miles to every corner of this country and 12 others, and believe me, people everywhere are gradually waking up and striking out in new directions. Don’t wait for the government to say it’s OK, just come on in—the water’s fine.
79 Comments so far
Show AllStudents are taught submission before they even reach a classroom desk. The bell rings and they are told to be quiet and get in line. Don't get me started on the pledge.
Judging from the politicians the US electorate has been supporting for the past 30 years, the educational system is a huge money pit that doesn't deliver.
The cost of higher education keeps rising faster than the rate of inflation because you can finance it. If no financing was allowed the cost would drop by 80%.
raydelcamino
Its not politicians that are the problem in education.
"The cost of higher education keeps rising faster than the rate of inflation because you can finance it. If no financing was allowed the cost would drop by 80%."
But it sure provides a comfortable and non stressful work enviornment for Professors. The constant cry of the educational industry is "we need more money"
They have plenty of money. More money than they need. Administration is top heavy and class rooms are filled with poorly trained teachers that are less than masters of their subjects. Good teachers leave because they are not allowed to teach.
The problem is obviously in the people that control education. A steady decline over 40 years is your first clue. Dumbing down, constantly lowering the bar to the worst students level is another. Passing kids that don't deserve it. Giving every kid in a class an award so no one is left out. How much are those awards worth then?
Anyone that wants a real clue to the problem...simply sit in on teacher interviews and be sure and ask them what the duty of a teacher is.
"Its not politicians that are the problem in education."
"The problem is obviously in the people that control education (sic)."
These two statements contradict each other.
q
Higher education in the US has become so expensive because the states have slashed support to state universities and State U's have become effectively privatized institutions which can charge anything they feel like.
Higher ed is free in many European countries.
And what possible objection could you have to pledging allegience to your own country.
Well if your nation is attacking and invading nations for no legal reason.
You might not want to make yourself a co conspirator.
Or if your an atheist, "one nation under God"
Or you do want to pledge to a nation that has never recognized or amended it's genocide of indigenous peoples.
Or a nation were so few have so much at the expense of so many.
Or your just a free spirit who does not want any Authoritarian entity commanding you.
Need I continue?
You forgot that the whole pledge is not the the nation-state, but to a colored piece of cloth. So it is also comically primitive, animistic idol-worship.
No other civilized country in the world has anything like the USAn "Pledge of Allegence" to it's fucking blood-soaked flag.
As ee comming's Olaf, the Proud and Big said, under brutal torture, "I will not kiss your fucking flag...There is some shit I will not eat!"
"... With Liberty and Justice for ALL." The USA works feverishly to DENY what the "Republic for which it (the flag) stands['s]" rationale as stated in the 1787 constitution's Preamble, with the current "heathcare" bill being a prime example. Then there are the illegal wars, massive violations of human rights in the continued committing of War Crimes, massive violations of domestic laws in their commission with zero acountibility, which is opposite of what the 1787 constitution demands. And there is so much more.
ALL Empires are brutal and ugly; the US Empire is no different. The sooner it disappears from the face of the planet the better it will be.
"The Pledge of Allegiance: A Brief Commentary"
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__060709_the_pledge_of_allegi.htm
This author is SPOT ON. Public schooling in the enemy of a free people. It is an instrument of government and big business to keep the masses under control. Only a stupid, ignorant culture makes celebrities out of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton.
Public education is the enemy of a free people? Do you mean that? As a former public school educator, I cannot let that pass. No, public education is not the enemy of a free people. Education confronts laziness, low standards, excuses for nonattendance, lack of ambition, and drug-induced lethargy. Education is not always fun. It requires concentration and drive and the ability, if not willingness, to get up early on winter mornings and go to school. Public schooling has nothing to do with the success of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, but the lack of public schooling might. And there are damn few teachers in public schools who would not leap for joy if a student voiced some idea he/she could defend which would call our political/economic system into question. Trouble is, there are hardly any of those students left. Where are they? You tell me. Private schools? Homeschools? Watching TV? Other video entertainment? Tokin'? It isn't the fault of public schooling that the society is crumbling around your ears.
Hear hear!
So often my work includes trying to undo the damage of the students' K-12 experience. Education-as-commodity is poison, and it's all that most people know, since they aren't treated to alternative views.
This was going so good until this: "And you can begin to free yourself from the conditioned fear that not being accepted at a “good” college will preclude you from a comfortable life"
So that's the goal? A comfortable life with lots of things and money, like Gates, Jobs, Ellison, etc? What about the obscure scientist who toils away on scraps of grant money working on a cure for cancer? What about the real teacher who spends her own money to give kids a better chance despite the system? Even the author is unknowingly part of the "get more stuff" mentality evidently.
Gatto's philosophy is not about pursuing "a comfortable life" but about learning to really Think and Do as the old elementary classroom workbooks had it. I think he means 'a good college' is an option, not a necessity. Obviously, if one's path is to be a scientist, teacher, or whatever, one needs and wants quality post-secondary education. But in recent decades the major 'major' is 'business'. It's interesting that such people as Gates, Jobs, etc. had both the creativity and the business sense to succeed (without a 'good' degree).
Yeah! Somebody finally figured it out - and, a teacher no less. Schools are institutions of indoctrination - always have been - with few exceptions. Heck, I started off in Catholic Schools - talk about indoctrination! When I switched to Public schools - not much better. I learned from books and real-life experience (as the author pointed out). I guess I was lucky.
I taught in public school for 15 years, in a quality system near Chicago. I tried to inculcate some of this kind of education into my classroom but it was difficult. By the time kids got to high school, many were pretty much "all schooled up". We (the progressive teachers) were reading John Holt, Ivan Illich et al... anyway, we tried.
Later, I had a chance to work with a grassroots group in Mexico that based much of its methodology on Paolo Friere, and I could see the success of that kind of pedagogy in practice. There, under skilled local leadership, it worked quite well.
The problems with the public education system simply reflect the underlying cross-currents of modern US culture. Public schools have been little more than a political football ever since the 1954 Brown decision which - theoretically - ended segregation.
We could take three steps which would improve public education.
1. Abolish local control of schools, removing at least one layer of politics from their environment. If, as Tip O'Neill said, all politics is local, then this step could eliminate or diminish many issues.
2. Disband ALL schools of education. These institutions function in a manner similar to that of human-resources departments in corporations; they provide coleges with a place to accommodate the really good-looking shitforbrains students that all of the jocks and professors want to bang.
3. Eliminate or greatly reduce the amount of standardized testing currently used to gauge schools' progress. Paper-and-pencil tests measure very little of what a student has learned. Standardized testing has become the edge of the political ax in education.
q
I absolutely disagree with #1; local control of schools is the only way parents can defend their kids from the Indoctrination System--BUT parents must become involved in theri kids education as it's really a triumvirate that's responsible for educating kids: Parents, teachers and kids.
I disagree greatly with #2. I attended a very good Ed school at Northeren Arizona; what was lacking there was rigorous single-subject coursework in US history, for example. But the writing program with its critical thinking componenet was very good--much better than the California system. IMO, every Ed prof at NAU would agree with the writer. I took responsibility for my education, which is why I ended up at NAU.
I agree 100% with #3.
The best first step anyone can take to improve her/his child's education is to jetison the TV and closely monitor computer activities and the time devoted to them. The second is to cultivate Discovery learning and the great importance of being responsible for your own education--This includes PARENTS, most of whom were shortchanged in school, especially after the 1970s.
". . . local control of schools is the only way parents can defend their kids from the Indoctrination System--BUT parents must become involved in theri (sic) kids education . . . ."
Local control of schools allows parents to undermine the discpline that teachers must impose on their students in order to teach them. No teacher can maintain high standards when any parent can go whining to the local school board and threaten that teacher's career.
I did not take my #1 point out of my hat. I taught in public schools for several years and the dynamic which I describe above was constantly at work.
If parents feel the need to "defend" their children from the public schools then they have private schools, tutors, and home schooling.
"I attended a very good Ed school at Northeren Arizona; what was lacking there was rigorous single-subject coursework in US history, for example."
You have nailed the problem with having a degree in education. Colleges of education simply do NOT require the kind of academic and intellectual rigor found in traditional Arts & Sciences schools. Even business schools require more from their students than colleges of education do. My daughter graduated (with honors) from nursing school and she did a much better job of teaching my granddaughter to read than the schools could.
People who want to teach should be required to obtain an academic degree and then serve a one-year internship under an experienced teacher.
q
The problem you describe is that of dysfunctional families AND the school systems they hypothetically control. The key word you employ is "discipline." You also make the error of painting all with the same brush.
I found that multi-subject/K-6 elementry teachers attain the shallowest learning of the subjects they are tasked teaching. Throw in the need to accomodate the rapidly rising number of learning disabled students, and there is even less time devoted to the primary subjects. Single-subject/7-12 is similar, although competence varies with subject, with math containing very few lies or myths needing to become aware of and thus able to dispell, for example. Each state has its own standards--curricular and teacher ed--and organizational scheme. And schooling in general has been under attack for decades because of the campaign to destroy the teachers unions, thus many lies are produced by the Propaganda System and its allies. The very rural school districts in my region have very good schools academically because BOTH the teachers and parents work TOGETHER to teach kids. Such partnerships ought to be natural, but for many reasons they aren't.
As a whole, the USA is dysfunctional, which includes its system of education. This is likely to continue as the US Empire implodes. Education ought to be liberating. But a truely liberated populace is the last thing the elite--from the Founders until now--are in favor of; thus our dysfunctional education.
"The problem you describe is that of dysfunctional families AND the school systems they hypothetically control. The key word you employ is "discipline." You also make the error of painting all with the same brush."
No, the problem that I describe is a structural flaw in the public education system which discourages and often prevents teachers from demanding quality work from their students. It is completely untrue to claim that these problems involve only "dysfunctional families." Competent and well-meaning people can and often do disagree and the parents - who have an entirely different perspective on their children than the schoolteachers - can let their fearful instincts overwhelm their judgment.
I have made no errors. Public schools are controlled locally throughout the US and so the problems that result from that arrangement persist nationally. If the shoe fits all of them, they can wear it.
". . . competence varies with subject . . . ."
Competence varies with the backgrounds and attitudes of the individual educators. It is meaningless to say, for example, that Mathemetics teachers are generally more competent than History teachers.
q
odoco
Teachers in every state have due process rights, so irate parents may threaten, that does not mean teachers will be fired - as long as they can legitimately document they have been fulfilling their job descriptions and abiding by other codes established by the district and the state.
I am a retired teacher / h.s. principal / curriculum director, but if someone told me that, as a parent, I had no right to approach my child's teacher, or to complain about that teacher's performance, there would be hell to pay. To insinuate that parents should not have recourse to grievances just because their child(ren) goes to a public school is ludicrous.
"To insinuate that parents should not have recourse to grievances just because their child(ren) goes to a public school is ludicrous (sic)."
I insinuated no such thing; you simply inferred it.
You can give teachers all of the "due process rights" that you want. As long as members of the local school board are popularly elected, either directly or indirectly, then political motivations will always override procedural principles.
During my years in education, I knew or knew of several excellent teachers whose careers were derailed by unfair and sometimes ridiculous parental actions. The fact that all of them followed local rules and guidelines and documented their teaching and student progress thoroughly made no difference. Remember, the people who serve on school boards are much more often parents than educators themselves and tend to sympathize accordingly.
q
Wow. He puts to shame every teacher I have ever had.
While there are parts of this approach that I applaud, sending kids out to the library, to talk to a legislator, or taking them out to hear a symphony or see a play are invaluable.
But the self discovery, feel good method, is a failure. This is exactly the type of education that has been going on for years in our schools.
The results are there for everyone to see. They are measurable, verifiable and squalid.
Learning does indeed require a framework to hang your education on, methods of thinking and learning are needed.
Unstructured, feel good, self discovery as a method of education is fools gold.
If you say you are satisfied with the product of our schools today, then you certainly agree with this person.
And yes students need to be quiet and get in line, its hard to learn in a classroom filled with unruly students.
" 3. Eliminate or greatly reduce the amount of standardized testing currently used to gauge schools' progress. Paper-and-pencil tests measure very little of what a student has learned. Standardized testing has become the edge of the political ax in education."
This is oh so correct.
Public schooling in the hands of the people in control of education now is indeed the enemy of a free people.
Teachers are meant to teach students HOW to think, not WHAT to think. It is NOT a teachers perogative to indoctrinate them with the teachers views. Though this is exactly what our educational teachiers schools are advocating.
The simplest measure is to take a high school education from the sixties or seventies and measure it against a college education today. The HS degree from that time period is superior. These students today are being cheated.
The proof is in the results (product) of the schools today.
Gee, what teacher's college did you attend? Have you ever taught in a classroom?
There is absolutely NO way a teacher can divorce her/his POV from the classroom. In some cases it's essential the teacher's POV takes precedent over the lies and myths that are entered into textbooks by the Corporate powers we all detest: Would you want Howard Zinn teaching PolySci or Woodrow Wilson?
Teaching is a very difficult job under the best of circumstances. To paint all teachers and schools with the same brush as you do slanders too many good people.
odoco
Thank you Karloff.
I worked in public schools for 28 years - and yes - many could and should be sued for educational malpractice. Others, though, shine brightly despite the tri-level bureacracy (local, state, & Fed)that imposes too many restrictions, guidelines, mandates, etc. Bush & Co. mandated No Child Left Behind - then refused to fully fund it - which is illegal under current law. Our state conservative legislature mandated that each child be taught 'flag etiquette,' despite the fact that teachers were complaining they couldn't possibly effectively teach all the previously required curricular mandates. It goes on and on.
The ed. paradigm still in existence is left over from the mid / late 1800s, when the state and feds wanted to 'school' immigrants to be good little, non-thinking factory workers. Thus, seats in rows, sanitized American history courses, stress on capitalism, patriotism, civics, etc. Now look at what we have today: still a stress on economic development, science (strongly related to national economics) and math (same, same). The arts, social sciences, literature have all been relegated to a second tier status in this never-ending quest to maintain the economic status quo. Many schools rarely have the opportunity to engage students in indepth discussions about current problems, arrive at multiple solutions through dialogue and concensus, etc. The system has relegated the 'human element' to a non-descript position of near irrelevancy. And the outcome of that will be what???
For those of you who cast universal blame on all public schools - you are simply wrong. I challenge you to seek out those in your communities who actually attempt to foster true learning in children, and I issue the same challenge to point out those in your community who deny students that same opportunity.
My three daughters never had a day, one day of schooling, or even of being taught, in their lives, yet they speak and write two languages,including japanese, which means two alphabets plus 1-2,000 chinese characters.. one, three languages, English, French and Japanese, and have basic math. One is a healer, one is a musician and an organic farmer, and one is a carpenter...The two who have children, gave birth at home. No member of the medical profession was allowed anywhere near...
Coming from a slightly different angle, Glen Doman has shown how it is possible to start teaching a child /baby at six months with a result that at four years of age, the child can speak two or more languages, is able to do advanced mathematics, and show a level of general knowledge equal to a college education...
My own educational philosophy was based on the teachings of the Japanese Master, Haruchika Noguchi, which focus on supporting the natural state of no-mind in children, whose disciple I was...
Being fluent in another language is important.
But, by "basic math" you mean at least through calculus amd and differential equations, plus probability and statistical analysis, right?
That is what "basic maths is in places like Japan and the UK.
Gatto is a long-time write and activist for better education. His Teacher of the Year acceptance speech is a classic read [an excerpt]:
"Our form of compulsory schooling is an invention of the state of Massachusetts around 1850. It was resisted — sometimes with guns — by an estimated 80% of the Massachusetts population... until the 1880’s when the area was seized by militia and children marched to school under guard.
Now here is a curious idea to ponder. Senator Ted Kennedy’s office released a paper not too long ago claiming that prior to compulsory education the state literacy rate was 98% and after it the figure never again reached above 91% where it stands in 1990. I hope that interests you."
And much more. A copy online can be found here:
http://www.home-ed.vic.edu.au/2002/02/26/john-gatto-teacher-of-the-year-acceptance-speech/
John Taylor Gatto is that very rare teacher who was neither deceived nor destroyed by the system in which taught. His work is avaiable in the form of collected essays with provocative titles like "Confederacy of Dunces: The Tyranny of Compulsory Schooling" and "Beyond Money: The Purpose of Learning (And Life)".
For any teacher (especially middle school teachers--which is what Gatto taught in public schools)a book of Gatto's collected essays is the kind of present you ought to give yourself to expand your mind about your profession and the students whom you teach and from whom you should be learning.
Poet
(a retired middle school teacher)
Thank you, Mr. Gatto, for being such an inspiration and driving me to learn the way I knew was right in my heart of hearts.
I took risks, I ditched the academy and all the frauds and territorial bureaucrats that dominate it, and you know what? I succeeded. I am truly empowered now. I see in the world almost too much possibility, my abilities are so various that it's a serious problem, perhaps the ultimate philosophical problem, of learning how and when and what proportions to develop and apply them.
It was a journey aided by the spirit of your late night, coffee-drenched words, one I can't wait to continue. If anyone could possibly teach courage or justice with a standardized test it would be you. Thank you.
i'm not sure the author 'backed up' far enough, in highlighting his own education, to really get to the heart of the matter...
even though education fifty or a hundred years ago may have seemed different, perhaps better, in a number of ways, the underlying psychological framework within which the learning is taking place, that of needing money to purchase life's necessities, was no different...neither was the notion that the earth was there to service man's physical and intellectual endeavors...
were people, back then, more aware that they were being forced to purchase naturally available necessisties from those who violently hoard them?
more aware that the industries they pursued in the name of wealth were poisoning the air and water to the point that their descendants would be unable to breathe, eat or drink anything non-toxic?
more aware that those they look to for leadership are, all too often, their worst enemies?
more aware that abrogating their life responsibilities would lead to grave vulnerabilities?
to discuss education, one has to define the goal...if the goal is the destruction of the living world in the name of human physical and intellectual achievement and social supremacy, then the entire scenario is faulty...even if, as some will argue, the goal is abstract intellectual capacity for scientific endeavor or artistic appreciation, the question remains: to use for what purpose?
violence reigns here, and education has nothing to do with that, but for creating better weaponry...
the only real education, at this point, is that violence will be required to save the world...following that, will be the education regarding how to live minimally within the natural world...
the ongoing, knowing destruction of our world negates virtually all claims for educational achievement throughout history, in my book...
show me how smart you really are...let's get those gardens growing!
Actually todays standard education is intimately connected to the vioence that reigns here.
False History
Nationalism
Encouraging Competitiveness
Stratification Classifications of Students
Breaking rebelling free thinkers and actors
Encourage self absorptioness
Obeying Authority
It's just warehousing kids. I propose instruction in math, reading, science, then send them home. Four hours tops. No standardised tests. We could save half or more on property taxes, which is good considering the depression we're in.
I have six teachers in my family. They all agree that the hardest part of teaching is the grinding daily struggle with administrators and the pointless paperwork.
My wife's a teacher and would agree.
But y'know what? I've been laid off from numerous office jobs, and if you asked me what the toughest part about any of them was, I'd say "the grinding daily struggle with administrators and the pointless paperwork!" So what's new?
I agree 100% with the post below of Civis Americanus.
You need SOME structure to learn not just basic reading, writing and math but also basic sciences, civics and hands-on stuff like shop classes and "home ec."
You NEED a TEACHER who knows more than you about how to do things properly when learning ANY subject, whether English lit or kung fu.
Public education whatever its flaws is a basic right and can help lift a kid into an intellectual world of mental and financial independence. This CAN be done without indoctrination, let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.
It horrifies me that a bunch of so-called leftists are treating the concept of free, quality public schools as if they were a bunch of homeschooling Christian nutjobs, afraid of ideas. I assume none of you grew up poor. Why do you chuckleheads think there was the big civil rights fight to get non-white students INTO good schools - to have them indoctrinated with useless BS..?!
I also agree 100% with Civis Americanus that we HAVE had too much "student guided" "learning" the last few decades, and that an American college degree in 2009 isn't worth an American HS diploma in 1969, or for that matter the equivalent now from Europe or Japan. I see college kids' writing once/week and most of them can't spell simple words and most know nothing about their own or anyone else's culture.
I do agree that the system-wide standardized testing has to go, but as far as in-class testing only for use inside the classroom... well, that's how a teacher figures out if you've learned anything and ultimately if you've earned a degree/diploma. No problem with that.
A lot of good comments here. I taught for many years in public school systems in many different States. I became convinced that schools do more harm than good.
One major problem is that in the USA a college diploma is required for most jobs that pay a livable wage. That form of prejudice is not only accepted but it is institutionalized. It is a form of prejudice that is almost never challenged. Why? How about some law suits based on discrimination - well that probably won't work. The judicial system is also dysfunctional and the plaintiff would be up against "expert witnesses" (paid liars). Juries love expert witnesses. Sort of a Catch 22.
Are students allowed to read and do reports on "Catch 22" nowadays?
If schools do more harm than good, what are you proposing in their place?
Most college degrees don't grantee a living wage job either, especially the profoundly dumbed-down bachelors degrees in the US.
The lack of living wage jobs to the non-degreed people is largely due to the decline of labor unions - and along with them, good vocational and trade education and apprenticeship training.
odoco
Anyone besides me notice the Republicans' recent negative surge on labor unions and public schools? DeMint from South Carolina is banging away at the Transportation Safety Admin. for being unionized while he simultaneously holds up the confirmatiion process in critical appointments. And as bad as public schools have become - privatization would be immeasurably worse. Then, the entire system would look at children as 'educational commodities' and success and failure would be measure by 'free market' bottom-line statisitics.
Take these two situations together - de-unionization and privatization of public schools - and you have the right wing's answer to the question: how do you divide, conquer and control the masses of people you profit from?
I agree that the job that US public schools do is appalling, but there are a number of points here that I rather disagree with:
1. The call for home schooling and other forms of opting-out is basically a formula for privatization and continued decline of public education. I am greatly opposed to that.
2. While room must be made to allow the student to pursue their interests, there is no way around the structured practice and discipline in some subjects like mathematics and writing composition. To think otherwise is like a physical fitness program that doesn't have specific goals like reps, durations or pulse rates.
3. Mr Gatto didn't mention a single accomplished scientist or engineer among his non-schooled or unconventionally schooled heroes. Most of them are capitalists and jocks - occupations that don't exactly require a lot of smarts - only a lot of greed and ruthlessness.
4. Standardized testing is used in other countries with superior schools to the US, like the UK and much of Europe. It is not the testing, but what they test, and how the results are used. Multiple choice, which has taken over even professional license exams, is a _terrible_ way to test a persons intellectual development.
5. I think the biggest problem with public schools is not how they teach, but what they teach. Most curricula, under pressure from the capitalists and the reactionary right parents groups, and from budget cuts, excessive class size, lousy facilities, are stripped of any kinds of assignments - reading lists or such - that encourage students to think critically. Much of this is by design.
6. The education degree - bachelors through doctorate, is indeed useless. Beyond K-6, Teaches should be educated in field they will teach history, political science, mathematics, biology, etc...
7. And finally, cutting to the chase, what I have found from working with and talking to many Europeans is that the number one problem with US schools is not how they teach, but the incredibly dumbed-downed stuff they DO teach - starting with the education of the teachers themselves!
"I let a 13-year-old boy who dreamed of being a comic-book writer spend a week in the public library—with the assistance of the librarian—to learn the tricks of graphic storytelling."
Man, I wish I had a teacher like that.
"Students are taught submission before they even reach a classroom desk. The bell rings and they are told to be quiet and get in line. Don't get me started on the pledge."
Public schools are no industrialized, especially in the city.
"Most college degrees don't grantee a living wage job either, especially the profoundly dumbed-down bachelors degrees in the US.
The lack of living wage jobs to the non-degreed people is largely due to the decline of labor unions - and along with them, good vocational and trade education and apprenticeship training."
I work with at least two guys with college degrees, one in Criminal Justice, the other in Psychology. I think you and the author are both right, Paul. I do disagree with the author like you do about "taking responsibility" for your own education. He's got his head in the clouds a bit too, but there's something to be said about self-discovery. It's just harder for people to find themselves when they're worried about surviving.
Here's one recent discovery I've made. Look up any actor, actress, or other celebrity on Wikipedia. Scroll down to the "Early Life" heading.
Then take a look at what their parents did for a living if it's mentioned. Chances are they didn't pump gas, meaning Mom and Dad were able to assist young Sandra or George financially while they found themselves.
I mean, we can find all of this money for wars and corporate welfare, but we can't pay people's tuition for them unless they agree to mount up for combat or win the reality competition sweepstakes known as scholarships.
"If the lack of a college degree didn’t stop Steve Jobs (Apple), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Michael Dell (Dell Computer), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA), Warren Avis (Avis Rent-a-Car), Ted Turner (CNN), and so many others, then it shouldn’t be too hard for you to see that you’ve been bamboozled, flummoxed, played for a sap by the propaganda mills of schooling."
Weren't at least most of these guys born into money? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Not everyone can afford to take risks, as in loans, mortgages. Not everyone can just quit their job and relocate, taking their chances and problems elsewhere.
While I've been off work, I've managed to catch a little daytime TV for the first time in a while. I managed to see a few episodes of a program on Food Network called "The Chef Jeff Project."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chef_Jeff_Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Henderson
It's a little bootstrappy, but it got me thinking; it's obviously possible to turn a felon into a chef. If that's the case, instead of just doing it for a few kids here and there, why can't we do that for everyone without them going into tens of thousands of dollars in debt? It doesn't just have to be an "at-risk" (aren't we all?) youth. It can be the homemaker whose kids are gone or the person stuck in a lousy job or the person who doesn't have one at all.
The seeds are there. Society just isn't watering the soil.
"Only you can educate you—and you can’t do it by memorizing. You have to find out who you are by experience and by risk-taking, then pursue your own nature intensely. School routines are set up to discourage you from self-discovery. People who know who they are make trouble for schools."
That sounds a little bit like me back in the day. lol. Most of my teachers liked me though. Our right-wing vice-principal had issues with me, especially after an op-ed piece I wrote for the school paper, one in which I basically said that 1984 was 1992, and that our school was rather Big Brotherly in some ways.
I also used to complain about all the adverts on the walls for Doritos and acne remedies and wondered aloud why there was one track for the preppy kids and another for the rest of us.
Besides, they thought all of us long-haired white boys huffed paint and killed chickens for Beelzeebub anyway. I fit a "profile." lol
"Then take a look at what their parents did for a living if it's mentioned. Chances are they didn't pump gas, meaning Mom and Dad were able to assist young Sandra or George financially while they found themselves."
It's almost impossible to overstate the truth of this observation. The home environment is almost always the primary determinant of a student's success.
However, that's not to say that only well-to-do parents can produce good students; their money just makes it easier to enrich their children's environments. Still, the attitudes of the parents toward education is even more important than their incomes.
q
"I also used to complain about all the adverts on the walls for Doritos and acne remedies and wondered aloud why there was one track for the preppy kids and another for the rest of us."
Seriously? Such "commercialization" would have been unheard-of when I graduated from HS in 1975! But, there was a designated smoking area for students, where pot was also smoked and the pot-smoking was, to some extent, even winked-at by the school administration.
Can you say BORED teachers also? I swear half my teachers would proclaim that they had a headache, didn't feel like teaching that day, and that we should therefore play UNO or paper football until the nasty buzzer rang in 40 minutes. And they wondered why kids skipped school.
But the teachers "loved" the diversity, so much so that most of them lived 10 miles outside the city. lol.
Asking a teacher what area they lived in was like asking about their sexual habits.
Glen Doman has shown how it is possible to teach babies starting at six months, with the result that at four years of age the child can speak at least two languages, do advanced mathematics, and have the general knowledge of a college graduate...philosophically, he is quite close to Maria Montessori and to Arno Stern...
Doman is American, Maria Montessori and Arno Stern are European...
Articles like this are is just one more situation where liberals are unwitting dupes of a scheme to dismantle another vital publicly owned service - this time the most vital of all in a democracy - quality public education for all.
It works the same every time:
1. Defund, and disrupt with excess oversight and meddling, the public resource.
2. Thereby reducing the public resource to very poor quality.
3. The well-off, including bourgeois liberals, instead of insisting the public resource be strengthened and improved for EVERYONE, buy their own way out of it. I call this the "bottled water" phenomenon, because, of the way they buy bottled water from Fiji, and organic food, insisting of insisting that good water and food be made available cheaply to everyone.
4 Public resource declines further.
5. The right and libertarians declare" "See, big government can't do anything right!"
Amen to that!
You are 100% correct!
Like the testimonials above, I had a nice solid urban public school education I wouldn't trade for the world.
I know a woman who has been "homeschooling" her kid for years. She let's him follow his bliss path or whatever the hell people say. She dropped out at 16 and hated school. He is 16 now and semi-literate at best. She is ignorant of a number of subjects and now he is too.
It's child abuse is what it is.