Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

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Summary: A MUST for parents: School is a prison- free your kids!
Review: This is a revolutionary manifesto for child-directed, home-based education. It is the original scathing expose of the truth about traditional schooling: It is a churning prison that steals the years, passions, ambitions and hours away from children. We live in a democracy, yet our children are locked up in totalitarian prisons for 13 years with adults controlling their every move, even depriving them of basic human needs such as the right to use the toilet! Every aspect of tradititional schooling runs contrary to children's learning, emotional, social, physiological and developmental needs- at all ages. Yet, children who cannot conform to the the confining, oppressive atmospheres are labled as "disabled" and are referred to be managed chemically. Many parents, bowing to the iconic school as if a God, comply with the school's demands and opinions of their children, allow their children's lives to be imposed upon with homework, punishments, detentions and rigid school rules and schedules. As a seasoned educator, John Taylor Gatto tells it like it is for the millions of apathetic children trapped in the decaying, outmoded institution known as traditional schooling. John Taylor Gatto candy-coats nothing as he challenges the system and demands that today's approach to education be revolutionized to reflect modern society, and the neglected educational needs of children. Before you become convinced that your school-hating, homework-boycotting child is "learning disabled", read this book and anything else by Gatto that you can get your hands on!!

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Summary: Fascinating literature. The system and the teachers fault.
Review: With this book, award-winning educator John Gatto articulates the hidden curriculum of public schools. It is a curriculum that inures students to confusion (uncontextualized fact-cramming), indifference and the hierarchy of class positioning. It is a curriculum that institutionalizes emotional and intellectual dependency and provisional self-esteem while creating an atmosphere of surveillance and control. In effect, it is an "anti-educational" environment and our leading national crisis. The end result of this curriculum is mass-produced students who lack critical-reasoning skills and imagination. Devoid of even rudimentary compassion, these children are cruel to each other, have difficulty expressing intimacy or candor, and display the same crass materialism we see reflected in culture at large. They are dependent, passive and timid in the face of challenges - the perfect fodder for the low-income service sector jobs that are so abundant in the United States. Contra compulsory schooling, Gatto espouses a curriculum that fosters personality development and relates facts to the real world. He wants to end the "bells, insults, and standardized tests" by encouraging parents to homeschool their children in a more humane, context-driven way. And after reading this well-argued, highly persuasive book, I have come to believe that this is the only way. If you are interested in doing further reading on home schooling or context-driven education, I recommend PLACE-BASED EDUCATION, by Sobel, and GUERRILLA LEARNING by Llewellyn and Silver. Another fascinating read is POWER AND PLACE: INDIAN EDUCATION IN AMERICA, by acclaimed Native American philosopher Vine Deloria Jr. and Daniel Wildcat.

j. william krueger

"Well-schooled people are irrelevant. They can sell film and razor blades, push paper and talk on telephones, or sit mindlessly before a flickering computer terminal, but as human being they are useless. Useless to others and useless to themselves."