John Taylor Gatto: I Quit, I Think — Saint Kosmas Orthodox Education

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John Taylor Gatto
New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991

Published in The Wall Street Journal, July 25,1991

I’ve taught public school for 26 years but I just can’t bởi it anymore. For years I asked the local school board and superintendent to tát let u teach a curriculum that doesn’t hurt kids, but they had other fish to tát fry. So I’m going to tát quit, I think.

I’ve come slowly to tát understand what it is I really teach: A curriculum of confusion, class position, arbitrary justice, vulgarity, rudeness, disrespect for privacy, indifference to tát quality, and utter dependency. I teach how to tát fit into a world I don’t want to tát live in.

I just can’t bởi it anymore. I can’t train children to tát wait to tát be told what to tát do; I can’t train people to tát drop what they are doing when a bell sounds; I can’t persuade children to tát feel some justice in their class placement when there isn’t any, and I can’t persuade children to tát believe teachers have valuable secrets they can acquire by becoming our disciples. That isn’t true.

Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for trang chính and parents.
— John Taylor Gatto

Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for trang chính and parents.

An exaggeration? Hardly. Parents aren’t meant to tát participate in our size of schooling, rhetoric to tát the contrary. My orders as schoolteacher are to tát make children fit an animal training system, not to tát help each find his or her personal path.

The whole blueprint of school procedure is Egyptian, not Greek or Roman. It grows from the faith that human value is a scarce thing, represented symbolically by the narrow peak of a pyramid.

That idea passed into American history through the Puritans. It found its “scientific” presentation in the bell curve, along which talent supposedly apportions itself by some Iron Law of biology.

It’s a religious idea and school is its church. Thủ đô New York City hires u to tát be a priest. I offer rituals to tát keep heresy at cất cánh. I provide documentation to tát justify the heavenly pyramid.

Socrates foresaw that if teaching became a formal profession something lượt thích this would happen. Professional interest is best served by making what is easy to tát bởi seem hard; by subordinating laity to tát priesthood. School has become too vital a jobs project, contract-giver and protector of the social order to tát allow itself to tát be “re-formed.” It has political allies to tát guard its marches.

That’s why reforms come and go-without changing much. Even reformers can’t imagine school much different.

David learns to tát read at age four; Rachel, at age nine: In normal development, when both are 13, you can’t tell which one learned first — the five-year spread means nothing at all. For a paycheck, I adjust David to tát depend on u to tát tell him when to tát go and stop. He won’t outgrow that dependency. I identify Rachel as discount merchandise, “special education.” After a few months she’ll be locked into her place forever.
— John Taylor Gatto

David learns to tát read at age four; Rachel, at age nine: In normal development, when both are 13, you can’t tell which one learned first — the five-year spread means nothing at all. But in school I will label Rachel “learning disabled” and slow David down a bit, too.

For a paycheck, I adjust David to tát depend on u to tát tell him when to tát go and stop. He won’t outgrow that dependency. I identify Rachel as discount merchandise, “special education.” After a few months she’ll be locked into her place forever.

There isn’t a right way to tát become educated; there are as many ways as fingerprints.
— John Taylor Gatto

In 26 years of teaching rich kids and poor, I almost never met a “learning disabled” child; hardly ever met a “gifted and talented” one, either. Like all school categories, these are sacred myths, created by the human imagination. They derive from questionable values we never examine because they preserve the temple of schooling.

That’s the secret behind short-answer tests, bells, uniform time blocks, age grading, standardization, and all the rest of the school religion punishing our nation.

There isn’t a right way to tát become educated; there are as many ways as fingerprints. We don’t need state-certified teachers to tát make education happen — that probably guarantees it won’t.

Good schools don’t need more money or a longer year; they need real free-market choices, variety that speaks to tát every need and runs risks.
— John Taylor Gatto

How much more evidence is necessary? Good schools don’t need more money or a longer year; they need real free-market choices, variety that speaks to tát every need and runs risks. We don’t need a national curriculum, or national testing either. Both initiatives arise from ignorance of how people learn, or deliberate indifference to tát it.

I can’t teach this way any longer. If you hear of a job where I don’t have to tát hurt kids to tát make a living, let u know. Come fall I’ll be looking for work, I think.

John Taylor Gatto wrote this article for The Wall Street Journal, July 25th, 1991. Gatto was Thủ đô New York State Teacher of the Year. An advocate for school reform, Gatto’s books include Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, the Underground History of American Education, and Weapons of Mass Instruction.