Posted on 09/14/2006 8:00:51 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
The secret of American schooling is that it doesn’t teach the way children learn, and it isn’t supposed to; school was engineered to serve a concealed command economy and a deliberately re-stratified social order. It wasn’t made for the benefit of kids and families as those individuals and institutions would define their own needs. School is the first impression children get of organized society; like most first impressions, it is the lasting one. Life according to school is dull and stupid, only consumption promises relief: Coke, Big Macs, fashion jeans, that’s where real meaning is found, that is the classroom’s lesson, however indirectly delivered.
The decisive dynamics which make forced schooling poisonous to healthy human development aren’t hard to spot. Work in classrooms isn’t significant work; it fails to satisfy real needs pressing on the individual; it doesn’t answer real questions experience raises in the young mind; it doesn’t contribute to solving any problem encountered in actual life. The net effect of making all schoolwork external to individual longings, experiences, questions, and problems is to render the victim listless. This phenomenon has been well-understood at least since the time of the British enclosure movement which forced small farmers off their land into factory work. Growth and mastery come only to those who vigorously self-direct. Initiating, creating, doing, reflecting, freely associating, enjoying privacy—these are precisely what the structures of schooling are set up to prevent, on one pretext or another.
(Excerpt) Read more at johntaylorgatto.com ...
After graduating high school at age 18 today, the students go on to a four-year college. Age 22 is correct. Age 23 if they're in a five-year program like a cooperative or an internship program.
Today, in most school districts, there's a very early birthday deadline that holds kids back a grade. In my district, a child cannot start Preschool unless he turns four by Oct. 1.
Both my oldest child and I have November birthdays. When I was a kid, I was allowed to start Kindergarten at age four turning five. He wouldn't have been allowed to start until he was five turning six. So, I graduated high school at age 17; he would graduate at age 18 if he were in school.
I have another child who misses the deadline by only nine days. And the school is strict about that deadline, too. Even if the school were more flexible, most parents adhere to the deadline, so your kid would be the youngest in his class. Maybe he can do the work, but will he socialize well with the older kids?
In some districts, they're moving the birthday deadline back into August!
Standardizing the curriculuum is also NOT the answer. Offering MORE choices is. We've been lucky enough to have sent both of our kids to very child friendly private schools, my youngest has since left and gone on to public school. And so far we've been very pleased with her progress there as well.
One comment he made is "there is no one way th educate a child. The ways in which they learn are as varied as fingerprints."
Every wonder why you had to frame this as a fairy tale? It's real hard to keep a gifted/talented program going in the public schools. It happens in University towns, or in places where most of the parents are engineers (we have large AT&T, J&J and other research sites close). It happens when parents are smart enough and rich enough to demand something better. Even then, its a continual political fight to keep these programs going.
I guess that makes sense. I've never memorized that birthday-falls-in-x-part-of the year thing. I also skipped first grade when the teacher discovered I could already read, so I was spared too much time with those goofballs Dick and Jane, and their idiot sister Sally. Since my birthday is in June, I was sixteen when I graduated from high school.
Good catch. No matter where or how we were educated, sentence construction means something.
Are you feeling guilty?
Your having a silly superior attitude regarding your perception of others children and my pointing out that it was narrow minded would lead you to believe I have guilt feelings - how?
Midshipmen were sent to sea typically at 12 but as young as 10 or 11. After two years at sea they could officially be appointed midshipmen. They learned their trade at sea, and when ready could sit the examination for lieutenant.
It was essentially an OJT or apprenticeship program. Seemed to work pretty well -- that's how Lord Nelson started out.
Yes, it is. The entire concept is fatally flawed. It's a bad idea, unless you're a socialist oligarch.
Bump for future read. He's the best living writer regarding the nature of modern schooling.
I would suggest that fml should have added a sarcasm tag at the end to make his/her meaning clear to you.
haha, but do they know anything? Are they vitally interested in their world ( I mean the one outside their games and TV) Are they able to make change without being told how much to give back?
Who are their heroes?? I know I severely generalized, but the vast majority of them are scary to talk to and find out how little they really know.
BTTT
"Unlike most european nations, we do not have a homogenous population in many states and cities"
And what countries would these be? The days of a Europe with a "homogeneous population" are long ago, assuming that this is in any way relevant. Most EU countries, including UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany have many, many African and Muslim inhabitants.
Did it take John Taylor Gatto all of the 30 years he taught in public schools (plus however many years he attended as a student) to figure this out, or did he just wait until he was eligible for retirement to "see the truth" and start speaking out?
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