John Taylor Gatto QUOTES

81 " imitation of notable models as an effective spring of learning;
was the most ancient and effective motivation to learn—to become like someone admirable—put to death deliberately by institutional pedagogy. "

― John Taylor Gatto , The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling

82 " At the heart of the durability of mass schooling is a brilliantly designed power fragmentation system which distributes decision-making so widely among so many different warring interests that large-scale change is impossible to those without a codebook. "

― John Taylor Gatto , The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling

83 " In theoretical, metaphorical terms, the idea I began to explore was this one: that teaching is nothing like the art of painting, where, by the addition of material to a surface, an image is synthetically produced, but more like the art of sculpture, where, by the subtraction of material, an image already locked in the stone is enabled to emerge. It is a crucial distinction. "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

84 " I began to realize that the bells and the confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all the rest of the national curriculum of schooling were designed exactly as if someone had set out to prevent children from learning how to think and act, to coax them into addiction and dependent behavior. "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

85 " I’ve noticed a fascinating phenomenon in my thirty years of teaching: schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes or politicians in civics classes or poets in English classes. The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers do care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic — it has no conscience. "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

86 " We don’t need state-certified teachers to make education happen — certification probably guarantees it won’t. "

― John Taylor Gatto , Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through The Dark World of Compulsory Schooling

87 " 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. "

― John Taylor Gatto , The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling

88 " The current debate about whether we should have a national curriculum is phony. We already have a national curriculum locked up in the seven lessons I have just outlined. Such a curriculum produces physical, moral, and intellectual paralysis, and no curriculum of content will be sufficient to reverse its hideous effects. What is currently under discussion in our national hysteria about failing academic performance misses the point. Schools teach exactly what they are intended to teach and they do it well: how to be a good Egyptian and remain in your place in the pyramid. "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

89 " Postscript, 2005 From the Publisher ON APRIL 7, 2004, the Mid-Hudson Highland Post carried an article about an appearance that John Gatto made at Highland High School. Headlined “Rendered Speechless,” the report was subtitled “Advocate for education reform brings controversy to Highland.” The article relates the events of March 25 evening of that year when the second half of John Gatto’s presentation was canceled by the School Superintendent, “following complaints from the Highland Teachers Association that the presentation was too controversial.” On the surface, the cancellation was in response to a video presentation that showed some violence. But retired student counselor Paul Jankiewicz begged to differ, pointing out that none of the dozens of students he talked to afterwards were inspired to violence. In his opinion, few people opposing Gatto had seen the video presentation. Rather, “They were taking the lead from the teacher’s union who were upset at the whole tone of the presentation.” He continued, “Mr. Gatto basically told them that they were not serving kids well and that students needed to be told the truth, be given real-life learning experiences, and be responsible for their own education. [Gatto] questioned the validity and relevance of standardized tests, the prison atmosphere of school, and the lack of relevant experience given students.” He added that Gatto also had an important message for parents: “That you have to take control of your children’s education.” Highland High School senior Chris Hart commended the school board for bringing Gatto to speak, and wished that more students had heard his message. Senior Katie Hanley liked the lecture for its “new perspective,” adding that ”it was important because it started a new exchange and got students to think for themselves.” High School junior Qing Guo found Gatto “inspiring.” Highland teacher Aliza Driller-Colangelo was also inspired by Gatto, and commended the “risk-takers,” saying that, following the talk, her class had an exciting exchange about ideas. Concluded Jankiewicz, the students “were eager to discuss the issues raised. Unfortunately, our school did not allow that dialogue to happen, except for a few teachers who had the courage to engage the students.” What was not reported in the newspaper is the fact that the school authorities called the police to intervene and ‘restore the peace’ which, ironically enough, was never in the slightest jeopardy as the student audience was well-behaved and attentive throughout. A scheduled evening meeting at the school between Gatto and the Parents Association was peremptorily forbidden by school district authorities in a final assault on the principles of free speech and free assembly… There could be no better way of demonstrating the lasting importance of John Taylor Gatto’s work, and of this small book, than this sorry tale. It is a measure of the power of Gatto’s ideas, their urgency, and their continuing relevance that school authorities are still trying to shut them out 12 years after their initial publication, afraid even to debate them. — May the crusade continue! Chris Plant Gabriola Island, B.C. February, 2005 "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

90 " When children are stripped of a primary experience base as confinement schooling must do to justify its existence, the natural sequence of learning is destroyed, a sequence which puts experience first. "

― John Taylor Gatto , The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling

91 " Regimentation, methodization, systematization, standardization, organization, coordination, disciplined arrangements, conformity -- these things are at the very heart of our national state policies, and are the poison that has killed our families and left individual survivors in a numbed, angry, nearly hysterical condition. "

― John Taylor Gatto , The Exhausted School: Bending The Bars Of Traditional Education

92 " How many schoolteachers were aware of what they actually were a part of? Surely a number close to zero. In schoolteaching, as in hamburger-flipping, the paycheck is the decisive ingredient. No insult is meant, at bottom this is what realpolitik means. We all have to eat. "

― John Taylor Gatto , Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through The Dark World of Compulsory Schooling

93 " People individually do best for everyone when they do best for themselves, when they aren’t commanded too much or protected against the consequences of their own folly. "

― John Taylor Gatto , The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling

94 " may occasionally pay lip-service to their value, but it ultimately has no real use for artists, dancers, poets, self-sufficient farmers, tree lovers, devoted followers of what it views as non-materialist cults — Christian or otherwise — handicraft workers, makers of their own beer, or, for that matter, stay-at-home moms and dads, all of whom, when they endure at all, do so at the margins and on the periphery of the social economy. "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

95 " What is currently under discussion in our national hysteria about failing academic performance misses the point. Schools teach exactly what they are intended to teach and they do it well: how to be a good Egyptian and remain in your place in the pyramid. "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

96 " Why, then, are we locking kids up in an involuntary network with strangers for twelve years? "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

97 " the lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

98 " The “Curriculum of Family” is at the heart of any good life. We’ve gotten away from that curriculum — it’s time to return to it. The way to sanity in education is for our schools to take the lead in releasing the stranglehold of institutions on family life, to promote during schooltime confluences of parent and child that will strengthen family bonds. That was my real purpose in sending the girl and her mother down the Jersey coast to meet the police chief. "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

99 " The capacity for loyalty is stretched too thin when it tries to attach itself to the hypothetical solidarity of the human race. It needs to attach itself to specific people and specific places, not to an abstract ideal of universal human rights. We love particular men and women, not humanity in general. "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

100 " Nearly a century ago a French sociologist wrote that every institution’s unstated first goal is to survive and grow, not to undertake the mission it has nominally staked out for itself. "

― John Taylor Gatto , Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling