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The Underground History of American Education
The true purpose of schooling, according to Gatto, is to produce an easily manageable workforce to serve employers in a mass-production economy. Actual education is a secondary and even counterproductive result since educated people tend to be more difficult to control.
Over the course of the book, Gatto exposes many of the individuals, organizations, and crises (both real and manufactured) that helped to make our public school system what it is today. Such architects as Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, and a handful of teaching and management experts sought to benefit directly from a dumbed-down citizenry. Others contributed in a naive attempt at Utopian social engineering, mostly unaware of the harm that they were doing. There was never any master plan, though. The author puts it best:
With conspiracy so close to the surface of the American imagination and American reality, I can only approach with trepidation the task of discouraging you in advance from thinking my book the chronicle of some vast diabolical conspiracy to seize all our children for the personal ends of a small, elite minority.Gatto maintains throughout the book that all individuals have an innate curiosity and desire to learn. Examples are given in the first chapter of prominent historical figures who prospered with little or no formal schooling. But I found the examples of desire for substantive education on the part of "the masses" to be most compelling:Don't get me wrong, American schooling has been replete with chicanery from its very beginnings: indeed, it isn't difficult to find various conspirators boasting in public about what they pulled off. But if you take that tack you'll miss the real horror of what I'm trying to describe, that what has happened to our schools was inherent in the original design for a planned economy and a planned society laid down so proudly at the end of the nineteenth century. I think what happened would have happened anyway-without the legions of venal, half-mad men and women who schemed so hard to make it as it is. If I'm correct, we're in a much worse position than we would be if we were merely victims of an evil genius or two.
When a Colorado coalminer testified before authorities in 1871 that eight hours underground was long enough for any man because "he has no time to improve his intellect if he works more," the coaldigger could hardly have realized his very deficiency was value added to the market equation.The real function of the school system is not to empower people by giving them knowledge, but to crush this instinct toward self-improvement before it makes the workers too independent and troublesome. Another compelling example is the "Jewish Student Riots" described in chapter 9:
Thousands of mothers milled around schools in Yorkville, a German immigrant section, and in East Harlem, complaining angrily that their children had been put on "half-rations" of education. They meant that mental exercise had been removed from the center of things.
The book does have a few problems. Gatto is by his own admission somewhat casual about citing his sources. This is important because there are some assertions made that many will find dubious. For example:
Looking back, abundant data exist from states like Connecticut and Massachusetts to show that by 1840 the incidence of complex literacy in the United States was between 93 and 100 percent wherever such a thing mattered.This would be a great fact to toss out when trying to convince someone that schooling is unnecessary. But where does this statistic come from? What does "wherever such a thing mattered" mean? Some readers may be willing to simply take Gatto's word for it and accept this assertion, but skeptics will be left unsatisfied. According to historical census data from 1840, the national average literacy rate for white adults was indeed approximately 93%, and the literacy rate for white adults living in Connecticut was 99.67%. Why not simply say that the statistic refers to white adults? The omission hurts the author's credibility in the eyes of a skeptical reader.
The other thing that I found disappointing is that Gatto doesn't discuss solutions to the schooling problem as thoroughly as I wanted. Throughout the book examples are shown of educational methods which have worked well. As I read, I mulled these over, and anticipated that the final chapter (titled "Breaking Out Of The Trap") would be a comprehensive look at these methods and ways to promote their implementation. But that final chapter is mostly a collection of anecdotes. Gatto does provide a short list of positive suggestions and a promise to cover solutions more fully in a future book.
The picture that Gatto paints for us of our school system and society is frightening, but I also found it comforting to see evidence that ignorance and apathy are not the natural state of humanity. I found hope in the fact that things were once different. Having a clearly defined problem that can be solved is preferable to having a vague suspicion that something is wrong, but no clear idea what it is.
The ideas presented in Gatto's Underground History have the potential to change our society and our individual lives for the better. Even when we are trapped within the system, knowing how it works and what it is really up to can help us retain our wit and our humanity. If you are a student, if you are a parent, if you know or care about anyone who is in school, or even if you are just concerned about corporate and government control versus individual freedom, you need to read this book.
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My mother is a school librarian in NY and she has told me how Bush's current plan means that teachers teach tests instead of lessons, but I agree with this guy; it seems evident that the school system was designed to make quasi-educated, but more importantly obedient factory workers. You want your workers to be able to read instructions, etc, but not much more; not think on their feet or anything. Its the only explanation for the disparity between college and primary school; and now that everyone is going to college, it's becoming the difference between a masters and a bachelors.
If you've worked with little kids, one of the first things you notice is that almost every single one of them really, really wants to learn.
But somehow, during about K-4th grade, most of the kids in the US educational system seem to have that crushed out of them.
Personally, I don't think the schools are wholly to blame. Quite a lot of it is cultural. Kids learn early -- from TV, from movies, and even from books -- that it's cool to be ignorant, it's cool to be a wiseass, but it's never cool to be a nerd.
The sooner we get an education system which does not teach religion or political or patriotic based material the better.
What school system are you referring to? Not the US school system clearly, a system where highschool religion classes exclude Christianity, where political science teachers worship europe, and where students are told that if the US were to vanish in a instance the world would be fine again in a month or two (a subject I once had a heated debate with my AP US History teacher about)
Come on now. Yes I know there are some school districts across the country that may also teach creationism as well as evolution, but those are clearly not the norm by any means.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
I take issue on your points.
Firstly, religion: we must make sure that in our quest to discourage endorsement of a particular religion, we do not discourage religion outright. That is, we must ensure that we accept all religions equally, favoring none.
Politically based literature, I believe is essential. It is absolutely necessary to create a populace that understands issues on both sides and is able to logically analyze those issues and "pick a side" so to speak. Most of our nations most dividing issues (abortion, being the most notable one that comes to mind) have sane, reasonable arguments on both sides of the fence.
Lasly, patriotism is a vague term that is largely misused by the right to imply that you should be doing what they say. Patriotism itself is not inherently a bad thing and can pull people in a nation together. However, through education on varying political and religious systems, as well as through education that teaches the people to think on a global scale, we can both be proud of the nation we reside in (for it truly is still great, imo) and yet also be conscious and aware of other nations' desires, beliefs and rights.
That's exactly what I'd expect. Our public school system grew out of the industrial revolution's need for people to have a minimum skill set and be regimented from an early age to follow a bell system. Ring. Lunch. Ring. Work. Ring. Leave.
Now that we're moving into a post industrial world (or that the industrial world is moving overseas) the regimenting is a bit less important and the skills taught have eroded to the point that McDonald's now has pictures of the food on the cash register instead of text.
The schools are great at producing people with stunted reasoning skills who can be content working at Wal Mart and make great consumers, and who vote (when they vote, if the system were perfect they wouldn't vote at all) based on emotion and often against their own interests.
There are some political parties who just can't afford to have an informed or educated electorate (hint: they tend to cut education spending and demonize teachers), and who's children never touch public school anyway.
-dameron
Boys especially need to have a break at certain stages of their growth, usually about 13-15 yo, when they should be sent away from home to some sort of boarding school/military school/vocational school arrangement, at least for a time. It all depends on the kid.
I guess I was one of those kids that didn't need that. What kids do need is to go to college AWAY from home... When I mean AWAY I mean outside of a single day's drive. No going home on the weekends for laundry, food, family time. These people need to stay the fuck at school and experience the "half-way house" experience that College helps to create.
Sending someone off to boarding/military/vocational schools when they are in their mid-teens will do nothing but help to alienate the child in a time when they might be alienated enough.
Kids need time to be apart *AND* they need time to grow but seperating them from their family at this point of their lives is hardly the way to do it. Wait for them to be of a mature enough age 18+ here in the States and don't let the little bastards come back.
You learn a lot, grow a lot, and change a lot in those years but you are still under the light security blanket that the college envrionment creates.
All of those examples seem to be primarily liability issues. So your problems may be the lawyers, not the schools. Which I can well believe.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It's not just the format of American education that's the problem, it's the content and the objective.
I think of American public schools like I think of American prisons. We really haven't figured out if we want to help the inhabitants improve, or babysit them to keep them from hurting others or themselves, and so far, we've done a shitty job of both.
But perhaps that's oversimplified. There are many different pieces that join together to form the whole problem.
1) Teachers - underpaid, underappreciated, and undertalented. We need to train, pay, and expect the best from teachers, and treat them with the respect and admiration deserving of the people who nurture the minds and interests of the next generation, because they are.
2) Parents - underinvolved and unwilling to do their part. It used to be that if you got in trouble at school, it was nothing compared to the trouble that you'd get into when you got home. Conversely, parents used to be much more active and supportive of their children's education, and "active" is not defined by putting pithy stickers on the minivan.
3) Students - "some children left behind." The hardest problem is that we have the mindset that school has a plethora of solutions for children with problems. It doesn't. Those places would be called "juvenile hall" or "psychiatric ward." Some students are going to misbehave, cause trouble, underperform, or fail, and we should let them. Not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up, and you don't get increasing results by applying declining standards.
School was pretty boring and unchallenging for me, but it wasn't miserable. It seems like it's heading that way, though.
I'm sympathetic to what you're saying, but I think this is the real principle behind your school's success (and other schools like it): the school culture explicitly promoted learning and education as a value.
This is the fundamental difference between such schools and public schooling, no matter what school board members, teachers, administrators, and teacher college PhD's say to the contrary. Learning and education is not valued in the public school culture.
In non-government schools, kids are there first and foremost because their parents care enough about education to spare the money for it. Moreover, every student's place in that school is conditional: fuck up, and you're out!
There are good teachers, good students, and good books in both government and non-government schools. The fundamental difference (that makes all the difference) is the above. Promote the value of education, and the work is half done.
This will not happen in American public schools, except for rare exceptions. Government schools in America cater to discipline problem students, half-idiot students, and every half-baked educational fad that comes out of the ivory tower. Apart from the good students, good teachers, and good ideas that happen to make it in through the doors, the public schools are a dumping ground.
For what it's worth, I went through graduate school, earning an M.A. in education and currently substitute teach in several districts. I'm familiar with what goes on.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
The fact is that millions of irreproachably competent graduates, and quite a few phenomenal ones, are coming out of the US educational system. And the Japanese and the German and the Australian and the British and the South Korean and the Swedish and the...
The notion that the US educational system, or that of any other developed country, exists to destroy students is self-evidently moronic. Certainly, I can tell you places where the US system needs improvement and having taught in Japan, Lord knows I could tell you where they need improvement. But the hook on which this discussion is hung is asinine.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I did not read the whole book, just browsed through the online pages. However, this seems like a classic example of the "hasty generalization" fallacy (http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/hasty%2 0generalization [thefreedictionary.com]).
The real irony here is that it is your own statement that is the hasty generalization. By your own admission, you didn't read the book.
RTFB.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Firstly, religion: we must make sure that in our quest to discourage endorsement of a particular religion, we do not discourage religion outright. That is, we must ensure that we accept all religions equally, favoring none.
But your statement itself contains a hidden discouragement: against atheism, which is not a religion. It's like asking whether you want grape, strawberry ot pina collada flavoring in your cynide slushie. Pick your poison.
A lot of important science raises serious questions that make people of many religions uncomfortable. But it should still be taught, undistorted. It should be taught specifically for the reason that it challenges religious belief: after all, that which is challenged and survives becomes stronger in the process, and if it does not survive, then arguably it *should* be destroyed.
Politically based literature, I believe is essential. It is absolutely necessary to create a populace that understands issues on both sides and is able to logically analyze those issues and "pick a side" so to speak. Most of our nations most dividing issues (abortion, being the most notable one that comes to mind) have sane, reasonable arguments on both sides of the fence.
I also take issue with this, though my point is more subtle here.
The person who picks how the sides are represented can determine the outcome. Rare has been the textbook I've seen that has gone out of its way to show that an issue is truly complex and difficult to decide. (This happens in favor of both sides.) Furthermore, presenting two sides of an argument equally implies to the reader that the answer lies between, when it fact the real answer could be beyond the extremes presented, or even outside of the duality presented. Many arguments have more than two sides.
Patriotism itself is not inherently a bad thing and can pull people in a nation together.
I had a German friend who went to school here, in the U.S., for a while, and the thing he said that struck him about the United States was how everyone is so determined to be patrotic here. American flags everywhere (even pre-9/11), and people conspicuously saying what a great country it is, and pledges of alliegience in schools. European nations don't fly apart at the seams, but neither do they, these days, have this kind of pervasive, cultural nationalism. We don't need these things to be brought together as a nation.
That's the evil word for patriotism of course, the negative version: nationalism. That's a thing that I'm not at all comfortable with having tought in our schools. It wasn't the everywhere-stars-and-stripes that brought the U.S. together after 9/11, that was just a result of a deeper sense of fellow feeling that emerged in response to adversity. What brought us together had nothing to do with our nation, but everything to do with our humanity.
because private schools don't have an agenda?
Sure they do. They have the agenda that their customers demand. In public schools, the government is the customer.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm homeschooled, and to be frank your comment pisses me off. You're just repeating popular stereotypes that have little to no substance to them.
they get no interaction with other kids and are far too sheltered...
Speaking as a homeschooled 17-year-old, that's bullshit. Any homeschooled kid who is "sheltered" and "gets no interaction with other kids" is that way because they are failing to take advantage of the opportunities available.
Did you know that homeschooling families can coordinate with each other and have "real" classes of all homeschoolers? Did you know that sometimes *gasp* a whole bunch of homeschooled kids might arrange a homeschool day at the park? Social opportunities *do* exist for homeschoolers, contrary to popular belief. Just because we aren't thrown together with hundreds of other kids does not mean we cannot socialize.
many times its becuase the parents are scared of the world
Um, not all homeschool parents are bible-pounding religionists. Not wanting to subject your child to the impersonal, unpleasant non-education given by public school != being scared of the world.
Schools have many problems but hopefully the parents will help and motviate their child and guide them in the right direction
If they are being taught poorly by overworked and underpaid teachers, get little to no personal attention, and are taught "to the test", how will a little "guidance and motivation" help?
But I do not think home schooling is the correct fix.
And I think you are wrong. While I am not claiming that homeschooling will work for everyone (it won't), your post is uninformed and incorrect. Learn a bit more about what you are criticizing (hint: not all homeschooling families are hermits or bible-pounders). Even better, go to a local homeschool association get-together or an all-homeschooler class, or talk to some real homeschooled students like me.
Then think again about your opinion.
I strongly agree with your statement. Teaching religions in high school can help in areas where students seem to be lacking the most these days. I believe that if students are opened up to the different philosophies of the world, they will better understand human psychology and culture. Perhaps it will reduce racism and promote analytical thinking (why is any one religion any better than another?).
I went to a high school in suburban Pennsylvania less than a decade ago. There was very little racial diversity (my class was 100% caucasian), and almost everyone was a Christian. Since I am not a Christian, I was made fun of and repeatedly reminded that I was "going to Hell." All I feel is sadness now. Sadness for the students' ignorance and for how hard it must have been for most to see and live in the real world. I blame the educational system. I was never taught about anything else until college, by which time I realized how much high-school failed to prepare me for the diverse world.
Students coming out of our (America) high school system seem to ever increasingly lack the ability to think on their own. Problem solving is key to a productive career. If students were allowed to debate fundamental philosophical questions, it would only benefit them. Having seen what our current educational system is producing, I have lost faith completely in it. It is embarrasing to me as an American to see this. I would very much prefer to move to Japan to raise children, knowing that their attitude towards schooling is far superior to America's.
I am not sure how one would fix America's schooling system, but perhaps the problem is not so much with funding, but instead requires a fundamental shift of our values. Students should want to learn as much as possible and contribute to extra-curricular activities. Whether or not someone in IT has perfect grammar doesn't matter - they need to be able to solve problems on their own or in a group to be useful. Teaching various world religions can help open that door, IMHO.
Schools are not designed not to teach, kids are designed, or molded not to learn. Today was my first day of school as a junior. I have a civics class and to get an idea the teacher held up a picture of george bush and said: who's this. 80% of the class said bush and ~20% said the president. Then Cheny, only about 20% knew this one, and I answered cheny. Then kerry/edwards. Some said howard dean, someone said "didn't he drop out so that cheny you just held up could run?" and only a few knew who edwards was. Nobody had heard of the swiftboat/kerry/vietnam contreversy or the bush/national guard contreversy except me and my brother, out of a class of about 20. Kids today are too preoccupied with music and friends and being "cool" to care. Listen I'm one cool cat ;-) and I am plenty aware of the events going on in the world.
My cisco systems networking, British English 12 and Precalculus classes are going to be HARD. Kids just decide to play dumb and take geometry junior year, rather than work hard, push themselves and move faster.
It's pathetic and I blame the media and these hippy parents.
Amen.