Dumbing Us Down - Part 1

I've signed up for the TJEd "Mentoring in the Classics" series, (details about which can be found here).  The January book is Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto.  Since I don't use Facebook which is where the official discussion takes place, I thought I'd write my own notes here. 

The first essay in the book is Taylor's, "Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher" which was a speech he gave to a group of teachers as he accepted a Teacher of the Year award.  I first read this essay about two years ago, but it reflects so many of the reasons we first decided to homeschool about ten years ago. 

"The first lesson I teach is confusion.  Everything I teach is out of order."

"I teach the unrelating of everything."

I was attracted to the idea of homeschooling because you could combine subjects as much as you want.  Learn about history by reading novels - awesome!  Study biographies of scientists then try some experiments.  Math in everyday life?  You betcha!  Everything relates to everything else, nothing is in a vacuum.  Unless you are sitting in an elementary school classroom.

"Nothing important is ever finished in my classroom nor in any class I know of."

I was so turned off public school by the description I was given of full day kindergarten by one mom I knew at the time:  "The kids are constantly changing subjects.  They spend 15 or 20 minutes on one thing, then they are up and off to the next thing."  She said it like it was the best thing ever.  I kept thinking: "can you say ADHD?"  And "But what if they aren't finished learning the first subject?"  Neither matters of course.  Just medicate the kids who can't sit still.  And we aren't going to do anything important so why bother being done with it.

"Curiosity has no important place in my work, only conformity."

Don't be different.  Don't ask questions.  Don't ask to learn something that isn't planned. 

The next two quotes mean more to me from a business office stand point.  I work in a large company of professionals, and I work a lot training and mentoring the new hires.  You can see such striking differences between the kids straight out of college and those who are coming to our firm from somewhere else in the industry.  The kids do what is asked of them, and do it well.  They don't take initiative.  They don't ask for more.  If they are done they just sit there and wait.  (There are some exceptions, in fact our current crop is fabulous!  We've got some real go-getters who you just wonder where they came from and where we can get more of them!  But most of them over the years, sadly haven't been like that.)  I don't blame them.  They are a product of the factory they came from: institutionalized schooling.  They don't know any better.  (I wonder if the few who do really stand out are influenced by family work ethic.  That's got to be it.  Work hard and get ahead.  You learn that from your parent and grandparents, not in school.)

"Good people wait for an expert to tell them what to do."

"We've built a way of life that depends on people doing what they are told because they don't know how to tell themselves what to do."

I think we are suffering in our society from too many cogs and not enough thinkers.  We've "schooled" the thinking out of people.  We can't do anything unless we're told do.  After all, what if it is wrong?

Gatto talks about "emotional dependency" in schools.  Students crave praise from the teachers, who are always right and know everything.  I see the same thing in the business world:  The boss is right.  The boss makes the rules.  The boss has the final say. 

Now yes, the boss does have the final say and makes the rules.  But there is a place (and I argue a need) for questioning the boss.  In the right time, place and manner (let's not get ourselves fired here).  But we don't have to stop and get the boss to answer everything.  We can learn from one past answer or instruction and move ahead and think things through.  Do we need to call the boss in?  Or can we handle it?  If we haven't learned to think, then no we can't handle it.  Sad.  And tiring if you are the boss.

I have notes on some of the other essays too, but this is long enough for now.  I'll make it a Part 1 and publish more tomorrow.