Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling,   ISBN:9780865714489

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I read this book a few years ago and my mind carries with it some of the book's most cogent points. I especially think about the illusion that our schools are really 'communities.' Instead, they actually divide and alienate us. A must read for deep thinkers.

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I discovered this book during my junior year of public high school. It spoke so clearly and truthfully to my own terrible experience within the system. Articulating in a way most adolescents are unable, this book illuminates the systemic subjugation of personal power and genuine inquiry that is very much a reality for today's public school student (even those who don't know any better- perhaps especially those).

This book held an important place in my life for a number of years. It lived in the bottom of my backpack, tracing with me the daily monotonies- hallway consumerism to classroom illegitimacy to textbook vacancy... worksheet after worksheet after movie-based-on-the-book. With this work, John Taylor Gatto inspired me to become a teacher and a better citizen. He inspired me to communicate the injustices and inequalities with passion and clarity but, more importantly, to work for change.

I can't recommend this book highly enough.

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Food, clothing and shelter--we easily shop around for these things. Why not schooling services too? Unfortunately, most young people are sentenced to 12 years of forced mass schooling in minimum security prisons run by government bureaucrats. I should know, I am one of them.

John Taylor Gatto, former New York City and State Teacher of the Year wrote this wonderful book and others where he explains how we got this awful institution, how bad it really is and how we can escape. His books are a must-read for all young parents and for anyone thinking about doing business with the educational establishment.

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I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a child in school. Do you face ugly truths head on, exploring and studying them or do you feel powerless against them? This book is a great introduction to the topic of education and its relationship to community and self-realization. You'll feel relief and anger at the same time, and you'll find that even as an individual, you do have the power to help move us in the right direction. Do you have the courage to honor your curiosity about it?

If you are skeptical of those who criticize the institution of public education, you may want to look up another book that explains the same thing Gatto is getting at, but does it much more objectively: The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. [...]

Gatto also wrote a more objective and penetrating history of American Education[...]

While these books are provided for free by their authors and publishers, I recommend a purchase in order to support their important work.

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I finally finished reading Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Tayor Gatto.

Wow

First, the quibbles. I think in some areas Mr. Gatto may have gone a bit overboard. Kids do need some structure, after all in the real world we have schedules and deadlines. He also has a common but erroneous view of Calvinism, seemingly thinking that it leads to public schooling. It might be connected to those who hold to Calvinism but there is nothing in Calvinism itself that supports (or rejects) compulsory public schooling.

Having said that, this little collection of essays and speeches exposes the flawed premises and practices that define public schooling. As a long time (and award winning) public school teacher, Gatto both has credibility and an insiders view of what is going on and why it went wrong right from the beginning. Mr. Gatto argues quite convincingly that the flaws in public schooling are not a modern invention. Instead the flaws are fundamental and tied to the system itself. The very institution is in a way successful because it does exactly what it was designed to do. Unfortunately, what it was designed to do has very little to do with education. As a product of the public schools, I can say with confidence that what is going on in the government mandated school system has very little to do with education.

Mr. Gatto rightly describes school as a bunch of kids unnaturally forced together in age segregated confines, shuffling from one class to the next at the sound of a bell. The kids are bored, the teachers are disengaged and the system is concerned more with self-preservation than education. All things I have suspected for a long time and I found more confirmation in reading what Mr. Gatto has written.

This is one of those rare books where on almost every page there was something noteworthy. If I owned it instead of getting in from the library, it would be overrun with underlining and highlighting. I dogeared over a dozen pages because of especially good comments, a series of quotes that I am planning on posting in bits and pieces very soon. He has another huge book as well but you can read it online at his webpage. I think every parent, not just those who have already rejected the compulsory government schools, needs to read this book and take a long, hard look at where this nation sends its children for the majority of their day during their formative years.