1Declaration: Free Markets, Free People, Free Minds

John Taylor Gatto was a teacher for New York's government (a.k.a. public) school system for 30 years. He won numerous awards for his teaching including New York City Teacher of the Year 3 times, New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991, and the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for Excellence in Advancement of Education Freedom.

This book is actually a collection of 4 speeches given on different occasions as he notes at the beginning of each chapter and 1 essay. Despite this fact the are compiled in a manner that lends to a natural ebb and flow and brings clarity and reason to the problems of government schooling.

Mr. Gatto explores his teaching career and has come to startling conclusion about the realities of government schooling. He constantly entertains the idea that true education is not the primary function of government run schools and insists that instead "schooling" is their primary goal. Schooling does exactly what it was meant to do essentially "to be the mass production economy directed from a handful of command centers. Such an economy has desperate needs: in order to work it requires a particular kind of 'human resource,' specifically one driven to define itself by purchasing thins, by owning 'suff,' by evaluating everything from the perspective of comfort, physical security, and status (99)." He argues that individuals are not important because they do not fulfill these needs and will therefore live a life of frustration.

An examination of the government school system by the author from his first hand experience in the profession has led him to conclusions about his 7 primary lessons he engaged in as a teacher.

1. Confusion - School has no natural flow or harmony in its lessons as Mr. Gatto explains. Schools teach too much information that is simply disconnected from one another.
   
2. Class Position - The author explains that every child is placed artificially into a class where they will remain. They look at other classes with disdain or fear, those below them or above them, respectively. Children are taught that "everyone has a proper place in the pyramid and here is no way out of your class except by number magic (5)."
   
3. Indifference - Remember back to your days in school. You would be sitting in a class you enjoyed immersed in thought and the bell rings directing you to your next work station where you once again become immersed in thought and then move again. This happens throughout the day. This lesson, the author suggests, is a teaching of indifference where you are programmed to not care much about for any subject. "Bells destory the pas and future," Mr. Gatto writes, "rendering every interval the same, [like that] of a map render[ing] every living mountain and river the same, even though they are not (6)."
4. Emotional Dependency - Children are conditioned to surrender their own desires so they gain the favor of the leader, in this case the teacher through any number of means like a hall pass, a good grade, or some other reward. Individuals are punished while conformists are rewarded.
   
5. Intellectual Dependency - Children are taught to trust the expert instead of formulating their own thoughts and ideas. If they do develop their own ideas on an issue they are punished or told they are wrong. This impregnates children with the idea into their adulthood that they should seek and expert for answers because they do not have the certification to come to a correct conclusion.
6. Provisional Self-Esteem - Mr. Gatto expains that grades do not really reflect competence in a certain area but instead are designed to prevent individual thinking and stifle self confidence to instead rely on an expert to measure your worth.
7. One Can't Hide - This perhaps is seemingly the most outright statement by Mr. Gatto. Children are constantly under surveillance and allowed no private time for self contemplation because privacy allows for individuality. Since government schools are operated by the government, privacy must be abolished as constant surveillance is the only way to create a more uniform and tightly controlled society free of individuals who will threaten government or more specifically the teachers control of the network.

Mr. Gatto concludes that government schooling is a root of the problem of social problems, along with an overabundance of a fantasy world created by television, because children are stifled of their creativity by the unnatural education that current schooling provides and taken away from the family that has been the primary education unit for children throughout history. Independent reports add weight to the argument as they show teenage suicide, drug and alcohol use, crime, and a variety of other self destructive habits are the most prevalent in America compared to the 19 most industrialized countries in the world. These problems continue into adult years as can be seen from the ever increasing size of welfarism, crime rate, drug and alcohol use, divorce rate, and other family problems in the United States. This is primarilly because children are taken from the community and family the most important elements in child development and instead imprisoned in a network of emotionally separated and uncaring individuals.

"Schooling" is not a matter about education but about the teaching of principle and indoctrination to create a society that punishes individuals, stifles independent thought, and strangles local interactions in an attempt to create a more centralized authority. Independent reports once again corroborate that government schools are not in the business of education as US students compared with other students through international testing have among the lowest test scores on the basic functions schools are supposed to teach: reading, writing, science, and mathematics. He also cites one report by Massachusetts's Senator Ted Kennedy that the literacy rate before the government monopoly of the school system was found to be at 98% in Massachusetts while after compulsory schooling literacy has never peaked past 91%. This is startling research that lends evidence to his argument.

Mr Gatto believes firmly that homeschooling is currently the preferable way to educate students until free market solutions can be introduced into the field of education where schools are forced to compete for survivability instead of the current system where a government monopoly on the education dumbs down our society. He correctly asserts that decertification of teaching should happen quickly and that education is a community responsibility. Afterall, who better to teach your children about business than a local business owner, government functions than a local government leader, fire safety than a fireman, or any other number of issues instead of "experts" who have little first hand experience with the topic.

He cites numerous times that the basic premise of education should be about self-education. After all, the basics, reading, writing, and math, can be taught to proficiency in less than 100 hours.

Mr. Gatto urges his readers to create an open debate in the public sphere for as long as it takes to change the system. The most startling assertion he makes is that government schooling is all about the creation of machines that are made from schooling that creates incomplete men or women. "Schools are a great mechanism to condition the onrushing generations to accept total management, to impose a kind of lifelong childishness on most of us in the interests of scientific management. Efficient management requires incomplete people to manage because whole people, or those who aspire to wholeness, reject extended tutelage (99)."

I encourage readers of this blog to pick up this book. It is barely over 100 pages in length and can be had for a few dollars. The premise is simple to understand. If you want to pick up this book or view other reviews please follow the link in my "Try Reading Something" section.