I just heard a recording of an outstanding speech by John Taylor Gatto called “A Short, Angry History of Modern Schooling.” Check out his website. If you feel like you are only one person, check out what one person can do. Wow.


Audio Clip: “The Paradox of Extended Childhood” ~ a Gatto Lecture at Cambridge, Massachusetts


John Gatto on Public Education

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  1. Here’s another quote from this speech that I find has less to do with schooling and more to do with the balance and harmony of the nation today.
    “We would have to come to our senses and admit that knowledge is not wisdom. We would have to believe that each American has the right to live as he or she deems wise, provided they do no harm to others. And if the way individuals choose means disasters for corporations as the Amish way embraced by too many would sure be then the fateful choice would have to be honored because it is protected by the only contract that we have in common, our founding documents and natural law. It’s time to remember what mankind needed an America for in the first place. The brilliant dialectical balance struck by our founders was a way to keep power weak and off balance, official power and popular power, both. Popular will would check government tyranny, government would check popular tyranny over minority rights. This constant confrontation, this unwinable war between two flawed collectivizing principle, coercive government and bullying public opinion, produces liberty for those who want it. As long as we keep the argument going liberty escapes.”

    A more effective schooling concept would go a long way toward putting the balance back.

  2. I don’t normally comment on blogs but your post was a real call to action. Thank you for a great read, I will be sure to bookmark your site and check in now and again. Cheers, Amy xXx.

  3. Joel Spring is less controversial than Gatto and deals with history of US education… Gatto is used often to attack public schools, and I have lots of friends in public schools who are trying to make them better…

  4. Steiner is also very strong in biodinamical methods of farming and spirituality. So quite an alternative to several “sistems”..

  6. JT Gatto’s book/thesis ‘The Under Ground History of American Education’ is on my list of ‘top three most significant books I ever read’. A copy of his speech ‘A Short Angry History of Modern Schooling’ came with it, and I have listened to it repeatedly. Two rather remarkable documernts he quotes are:

    “Inculcating knowledge makes workers able to perceive and calculate their grievances, it makes them more redoubtable foes in labor struggles. Such an education is bound to retard the growth of industry.

    A solution to this dilemma is possible through a different form of education.”
    U.S. Department of Education Circular, April, 1872

    “We believe that Education is the principal cause of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the labor classes.”

    Report of the Senate Committee on Education, 1888
    Page 1382

  7. I remember Gatto talking about the funny role and growth of non-teaching administrators in public schooling. If the superintendent(the head guy of each local system) does anything that MAKES SENSE to change the school system, he gets a call from a superior (maybe state or county officials) who have had POLITICAL PRESSURE placed on them to force the super to change back his policies.

    If the super doesn’t fall in line, he is eventually fired…but usually gets a another position in other region and state and will follow the line from then on to avoid being fired again.

    The super seems to have a short shelf life in any one local school system…i think (my memory is fuzzy on this) Gatto said that super’s spend less than 5 years in any one school system.
    …

    Most property taxes go towards funding our public school systems.

    Gatto mentioned that in the 1970s that many subsistence farmers were forced off their land when property taxes tripled.

  8. I’m a huge fan of Gatto.I’ve heard a number of his speeches and essays, plus he was on CSpan once. His online book An Underground History of American Education is at http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm . In my opinion, 80%-90% of compulsory schooling is a sad joke. It’s an expensive babysitting service and jobs program.

    “The shocking possibility that dumb people don’t exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my central proposition: the mass dumbness which justifies official schooling first had to be dreamed of; it isn’t real.”

    This is a 50-second clip where he confirms the point that school records tell us little about an individual’ ability: Dubya was at least average in college, Bill Bradley was a bad student, and AL GORE FLUNKED 6 OUT OF 7 COURSES DURING HIS FRESHMAN YEAR AT HARVARD.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t0m0zxtuwQ

    Speaking of Harvard, Gatto’s explains that James Bryant Conant (former Harvard President) played an important role in creating our modern schooling system post World War II. During the early 20th century,the non-profit Education Trust formed by (if I remember correctly) major industrialists like Rockefeller & Carnegie funded some ridiculous percentage (40%? 60%?) of all school curriculum NATIONWIDE.

    Gatto says that schooling in 19th century was much better than before the Education Trusts got a hold of the school system in later decades. Literacy was VERY HIGH and considered such a basic and easy skill to learn that some elementary schools required attendants to already know how to read before attending.

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