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Summary: An excellent, concise introduction to Mr. Gatto
Review: As many reviewers have written lengthy reviews I will keep mine short and address a specific issue. Those reviewers who have generally favorable comments about this book but balk at Mr Gatto's contention that the ill-effects of the public school system are intentional and premeditated should read his book "The Underground History of American Education", in which he provides the documentation to support his views. You will come away with a different view of both the public education system and the history of this nation, especially the early twentieth century.
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Summary: Dry and disappointing to me
Review: Having seen this title on every "official" recommendation list for homeschooling families, I had high hopes for this book. But Gatto lost me in his insistance that there's a malevolent intention behind the way public schools are run. I can understand and agree with the contention that schools are set up to train our children to go into the workforce, and therefore economics demand accountability and result in a drowning out of true learning. But to go further and insist that there's a scheme to keep our kids from being able to think beyond what's been drummed into them is a stretch too far for me. That result may be a natural consequence of our factory-like public schools, but I can't buy it as their intention from the outset. I found Gatto's speaking style dry and dull. I kept telling myself that I was just not "getting" this book, and it surely would get better. But that never happened for me. Purchase this book if you suspect a conspiracy behind weighing our children down. But if you're into homeschooling as a healthier alternative to what you're seeing in public schools then I'd suggest you look to other resources.
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Summary: Great little book about the way kids are educated
Review: I loved reading this book by John Gatto. His credentials speak for themselves. He pulls no punches in detailing what he thinks is wrong with America's educational system. Not a lifelong career teacher, he started out as a substitute teacher and went on to become (twice) the Teacher of the Year in New York. Gatto makes some great observations about all the ways children learn, and don't learn, in America's schools. He makes the point that kids should be taught in a manner that works best for them, not put into a one size fits all type of educational system and moved along, year after year because that's the way things are. Gatto makes you think about the way you may have been edaucated; and that is not necessarily in the classroom at school. I was fortunate enough to have some radically different teachers when I was young, and their influence on me still has an effect on me. John Gatto is one of those types of radical teachers who, no doubt, has a long reaching effect on his students because he wants them to learn, not just to fit into some type of system. I have lost my copy of this book and I am going to buy another one!!
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Summary: Tragically True
Review: I put off reading this for a while because I was unable to find a copy to preread at my local library. I switched libraries and easily found a copy at my much larger, much better library. I think I may actually purchase this book. Its small size is deceptive as to the amount of information contained within. I had a rare educational experience growing up. I was in a private school, multiple public schools, and homeschooled. The sadness and despair I felt in the public schools still haunts me. The apathy and indifference exhibited by my peers was then and is still frightening now. The sheer amount of time watched of television on a daily basis was boggling. I think most people don't understand how much of their time it really takes. and I still do not understand the purpose of homework from a practical perpective. Is this theft of our children's childhoods really acceptable? Gatto was completely on the mark about many matters. The infection upon our country that is public education is distroying our nation. It is why we are unable to successful compete in the global labour markets. It is why most of your children can't read or do simple math, much less philosophize or perform calculus. That and the TV. Read this book. The whole thing. It is short, but extremely powerful.
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Summary: An essential challenge
Review: I would recommend this book for anyone concerned about the problems of public, institutionalized education. It raises important challenges, the kind that are hidden in plain sight and often go unaddressed. As someone who survived K-Bacchelaureate with straight A's and psychological scars, only to learn too late that the words "Summa Cum Laude" on my degree were my reward in full, I find that many of Gatto's charges against institutional schools ring utterly true. Such schools teach their structure more than any content, and that that structure's facetious fragmentation of time and content, its pigeonholing of students by age, its usurpation of all personal privacy and dignity, and its very compulsory nature are actively hostile to the humanity and self-sufficiency we should want for students.
To me, however, Gatto's proposed solutions become problematic. His prescription is for true communities of a kind that perhaps no one I know---not even my parents and grandparents---can actually reconcile with the environment they grew up in. One friend in particular was disturbed by his proposed solutions because she was the child of a poor, single, and rather dysfunctional mother who was not well-equipped to facilitate her education without the availability of some kind of public school. Any solution to the school problem must address such situations, rather than simply trusting that all families and all communities will be functional and will meet children's needs if left to themselves.
Chapter 5, "The Congregational Principle," which focuses on proposed solutions, disturbs me most. Gatto vacillates from praising Socrates' condemnation of the Sophists for taking money to teach to espousing unleashing pure market forces on education. His exalted example is colonial New England towns that were able to achieve "true communities" through the option of excluding or oppressing undesirables. His point that these communities eventually corrected themselves from within without coercion (and the backlash it produces) is well taken, but as a liberal, I think it irresponsible to respond to the injustices of race, gender, and class by just leaving communities to their own prejudices and trusting that they'll be better a century after my death than they are now. Such triumphs of justice as Black Emancipation, Women's Suffrage, and the Civil Rights Act are, in my view, worth the fight, even if they did trump the judgement of some communities, and I don't follow Gatto's logic that immediately equates such nationwide achievements with nationally centralized school curricula that result in lifeless and mechanical schooling.
Perhaps my single biggest problem with this book is the lack of citations. I'm not prepared to take some of the author's scientific and historical assertions at face value---like a literacy rate of 98% in Massachusetts before compulsory schooling began, or the assertion that teaching the basic "three R's" takes only 100 hours with a motivated student---and feel that these need citations to investigate or confirm for myself.
Despite its problems, however, I would still call the book a "must read" for anyone with an interest in the issue. Gatto's criticisms of our schools' basic paradigm are ones we cannot afford to ignore, and although his proposed solutions may be flawed, we benefit from listening and weighing what he has to say.
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Summary: It's Not About Bad Schools!!
Review: John Taylor Gatto is my favorite writer on matters of the school system. In Dumbing Us Down, he espouses no particular type of alternative to public schools. Instead, he demonstrates what many non-homeschoolers don't understand - that it's not about 'bad schools'! It's about schooling being anti-education. Gatto, a 26 year veteran of the New York city school system and twice winner of the New York State teacher of the year award, shows that schools serve to: confuse, dominate, strip self esteem, limit children's ability to work, shorten attention span, refuse to allow children to attempt to think for themselves, and many more anti-education practices. Through historical reference, Gatto shows how schooling is a modern phenomenom, closely linked to totalitarian governmental brainwashing. As an example to how schools are anti-education, he demonstrates that in the state of New Hampshire literacy rates have only gone down - drastically, from where they were before institutionalized schooling. If you are a parent, read this book. You will never think the same way about your child's education again.
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Summary: Not really radical; a must-read!
Review: Mr. Gatto's authoritative rant will serve to further destabilize the already shaky public education system -- no loss, as it should be obvious to any but the most simple-minded. As one of two dedicated parents of an almost-four-year-old, we had been disgusted with the "choices" the state deigns to present to us in education: bad and worse. These are, of course, not choices at all. Mr. Gatto explains briefly how far education and learning have fallen in the US, and how the "education" system serves only to propagate and serve itself, not the children who are its nominal clients.
If you doubt that the US state school system is de facto totalitarian, just try to homeschool without jumping through hoops, pleading for exemptions, and submitting to standardized testing. See how long you go until you get "the knock".
Any current or soon-to-be school-age parent must read this book to assist them in their decision to send their kid to or keep their kid in the 12-year prison of progressive factory schooling. Those who are the product of the system, as I am, will read, grieve, get angry and get primed to take action. It is a disillusioning book, in the sense of having the wool pulled off one's eyes at last.
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Summary: Moving argument from a passionate speaker/writer
Review: My husband and I both read this book twice. We are homeschooling and were looking for some more motivation (we'll take all we can get.).
This book puts forth the premise that the institution of schooling (and not teachers) are causing damage to our children in a number of ways including teaching them to know their place (not a good thing in my mind and certainly not in Gatto's), teaching confusion (ok, I'll teach you about Ben Franklin as we practice reading comprehension and the next teacher will talk about the Egyptians in discussing math and pyramids and your history teacher will tell you how Columbus was the first to set foot in America), to teaching that nothing's important ("I know I told you that fractions are important and that you need to pay attention and all, but the bell's rung, so get out of here and go to your next class, sorry if you're not done yet or if you're still confused.").
In all, it's a moving portrayal by an award-laden teacher of our school system and all that is wrong with it.
My contention arises from the conclusion the reader almost has to draw: the dissolution of the public school system.
It is unrealistic to say, for instance, "ok, schools are a problem, shut them all down," and then expect everything to start coming up roses. So many people will be out of work, so many parents have to work and can't stay home with their kids. Are we supposed to just let kids stay home alone and hope they teach themselves how to read and do lunch?
It's motivating for those who can have someone stay home and teach their own kids. It's intriguing for those who wonder why so many of their friends say they haven't read a book since 10th grade. It's powerful, but it's a pipe dream.
Read it because you want to know.
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Summary: For anyone with concerns about the issues of public school
Review: Now in a new 10th anniversary edition, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum Of Compulsory Schooling is the revolutionary, forcefully presented opinions of John Taylor Gatto, a 30-year veteran public school teacher, and an educator who also earned the distinction of becoming the New York City and New York State Teacher of the Year. Gatto persuasively denounces the homogenizing, drone-mentality aspects of compulsory education, decrying how it limits children's life experience, fails to impart the learning that it should, replaces real communities with single-interest networks and transitory "friends," and contributes to the overall downward spiral in America's rising divorce rate and other social ills. As potent a message today as it was when first published ten years ago, Dumbing Us Down presents zealous and radical ideas such as completely deregulating and privatizing education, spending less money on schools rather than more, and making children serve community service as part of their school regimen; yet whether the reader agrees with such solutions or not, the problems presented with the current educational system are as real today as they were a decade ago, and very much need to be addressed. Dumbing Us Down is strongly recommended reading for anyone with concerns about the issues of public school, private schooling, voucher systems, proficiency testing, teacher accountability, and the other pressing and controversial issues of education policy.
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Summary: Five simple essays on education
Review: The book consists of five essays on the education system in the US. The first two essays are acceptance speeches for teaching awards that Gatto received. The first, which Gatto gave while accepting a Teacher of the Year Award for New York State, addresses the seven lessons he and the school system teach students. it is a harmless subject unless one considers that Gatto defines those lessons as confusion, class position, indifference, emotional dependency, intellectual dependency, provisional self-esteem and lack of privacy. His speech on being awarded the state teacher award the previous year was entitled "The Psychopathic School" - and they still asked him to speak again the next year!!!
That fact and the fact that he won awards at teaching, a field he later left because of moral issues with "indoctrination", give his theories weight. Often the way he is saying things is very conspiratorial. But what he is saying is well reasoned and logical. Gatto knows what he is talking about well enough to spook me.
This book was very different from what I expected. It is large print and only about 100 pages. Anyone of these essays can be read in a sitting. I was expecting something more scholarly with more facts to back up what Gatto is saying. This is not to dismiss the book. You can get a lot from reading a chapter/essay and then thinking about it. Gatto brings up but they tend to be about well known historical figures, such as Benjamin Franklin, or stories about his students and experiences teaching. He is taking you through a thought process, rather than documenting the phenomena he sees in schools.
This is a book well worth reading if you have a child in schools or are involved in the education process. It is a fast read, but there will also be some time for thinking and turning those issues over in your head afterwards. Despite the occasional conspiratorial tone much of what Gatto said rang true for me.
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