Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Review
Gatto's little book of rhetoric is one of the treasures I'm using to strengthen my resolve this summer as I spend it "doing nothing" with my 4 and 7-year-olds. By doing nothing, i mean gardening, swimming, playing, painting, tearing the house apart and putting it back together multiple times in a day, so that it's always messy but constantly in use, preparing meals from scratch, talking, thinking, giving my kids privacy in which to develop minds and souls, arguing (Gatto gets the dialectic) and allowing my kids to be co-creators in the unfolding of their days. Anyone who has been home full-time with kids knows that the psychic pressures are awful, especially in a materialist society that values physical appearance, youthfulness and earnings and pretty much nothing more. I have often felt that the work I'm doing is the most important work in the universe but that it's oddly invisible, part of an invisible world, and that as a mom at home I am either invisible or, when seen, held in contempt. It's a bizarro situation, because I truly believe I am fighting against larger powers to nurture the human spirit, yet my day is composed of mundanities, and it sometimes feels, at day's end, I have nothing tangible to show for my work. Another mom recently mentioned how, at day's end, you're so tired, you end up yelling at your kids and saying things that you'd fire a caregiver for saying. How could her kids possibly be better off at home with her, as opposed to being in a benign daycare situation with distanced professionals! But I told her it's precisely that real quality of human interaction that kids need.
I figure reading Gatto's book shaved off 5 years of illusory labor for me; though 2 years of interaction with public school has proved its unacceptability to me, I probably would have wsted time trying to fix it, volunteering to eat my lunch with the kids, sa no other adult does so, volunteering to be on the playground, where bullying and lying seem to be officially condoned by the institution. Gatto's vision just cuts right through all that. Gatto's ultimate libertarian solution, to disband a national public school system and return schooling to the local level, is challenging for me. Certainly, everyone sees the evils of "No Child Left Behind" right now, the teaching to tests, the lack of freedom to respond to students' needs. But to disband public school completely? I have to chew on this some more, as I do on Gatto's fascinating philosophical thinking. I always thought of Abraham Lincoln as a hero for doing the right thing despite the cost, but if I'm reading Gatto right, slavery should have been handled in a local fashion, as opposed to the dictates of Central Authority, for any real and lasting meaning, any dialectic process. I've often flirted with libertariansim, as someone who considers neither Republican nor Democrat to be valid choices. But the libertarians seemed so fringe, and who can take Ayn Rand seriously? I'm inspired to read more on the subject, and while I'm convinced that power should head back to states and away from the corrupt center, in general, I remain challenged by the extremism of libertarian thinking. Never, though, have we ever been in more danger of ceding democracy and freedom to cenral authority than we are now, with a contemptuous president who will use the judicial branch to override the vote of the people. Freedom is so glancing, rare and sweet these days; I thought of that recently when visiting my childhood state, "live free or die" New Hampshire. It was biker week, and as my husband and children and I drove in our rental car into the growing darkness, we were startled to see all the bikers without helmets, and we talked at length about personal choice and responsibility and about how risky and dumb the bikers' behavior was, and yet it was the sweetest thing to watch.
Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Feature
- ISBN13: 9780865714489
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Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Overview
This radical treatise on public education has been a New Society Publishers' bestseller for 10 years! Thirty years of award-winning teaching in New York City's public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory governmental schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders as cogs in the industrial machine. In celebration of the ten-year anniversary of Dumbing Us Down and to keep this classic current, we are renewing the cover art, adding new material about John and the impact of the book, and a new Foreword.
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Customer Reviews
Dumbing Us Down - NicoleLT -
A MUST read for anyone teachers, parents, and students who instinctively know there is something seriously wrong with our education system!
Very interesting persceptive - RedCisc -
As a college professor, I found Mr. Gallo thesis very interesting. I look forward to hearing how my daughter's professor is going to apply Gallo's point of view.
If it ain't broke... it should be. - dnk - Boston, MA United States
It is easy to believe that more than half of this was written late at night. Gatto makes provocative statements, but is many times short of proof. This isn't the book for an alien from outer space to start with to be convinced of the ills of our public education system.
The book works because almost everyone who is going to read this didn't drop off from another planet and can personally relate to almost everything Gatto writes, even if he doesn't substantiate his claims.
The central argument is that for all of our hand wringing about the state of the public schools, they do what they have set to do. They create the workforce necessary to power our production/consumption economy, and because of the convoluted system of rewards, punishments and arbitrary favor and permission, they also instill the desire to buy happiness with stuff.
The arguments in the book have already been laid out by other reviewers, so I won't repeat them. I will say that I held my breath when he was talking about the lack of privacy and the need to plea for permission to do the most basic things, like drinking water or using the bathroom. I remember how much I craved my privacy when I was younger, and I know I wasn't the only one. I could also relate to what he wrote about constant interruptions and time management needs based on arbitrary schedules.
What he wrote 20 years ago about networks versus communities have been realized. It is newsworthy in mid 2010 when people start concentrating their activity in their community, rather than racing towards a goal outside of it. It's happening more, but it's still seen as "counter cultural". Clearly, the culture needs to be countered.
If you've been thinking about homeschooling for yourself or your children, take a look.
I'll never think the same again - jenniferneille -
John Gatto is the voice of the 21st century. He is revolutionary and reading any of his books is terrifying because they absolutely change your life. You can't read them and stay the same in your thinking. I first read this book 10 years ago and as a result have brought up my children completely different to modern day propaganda on raising and schooling children. Compulsory schooling is against the rights and dignity of the child and is completely irrelevant, it's merely a detrimental form of child minding at best and a silenced form of control and child abuse at worst. Gatto has also challenged my beliefs as a materialistic westerner, towards something more humanitarian. He is easy and exciting to read and he doesn't waffle, but delivers his message straight and concise. I'm forever grateful that I stumbled upon this man's work, he is a most intelligent and compassionate author. I love John Gatto, he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize!!
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