the hidden curriculum of compulsory schooling

Now, in an ever-more-rapidly changing world with an explosion of alternative routes to learning, it's poised to continue to shake the world of institutional education for many more years.įeaturing a new foreword from Zachary Slayback, an Ivy League dropout and cofounder of tech start-up career foundry Praxis, this 25th anniversary edition will inspire new generations of parents and students to take control of learning and kickstart an empowered society of self-directed lifetime-learners. Gatto's radical treatise on public education, a New Society Publishers bestseller for 25 years, continues to bang the drum for an unshackling of children and learning from formal schooling. He became a fierce advocate of families and young people taking back education and learning, arguing that 'genius is as common as dirt,' but that conventional schooling is driving out the natural curiosity and problem-solving skills we're born with, replacing it with rule-following, fragmented time, and disillusionment.

Thirty years of teaching in the public school system led John Taylor Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory governmental schooling is to blame, accomplishing little but to teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine. Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling John Taylor Gatto 5.0 4 Ratings 12.99 Publisher Description Thirty years in New York Citys public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine. Some form of free market system in public schooling is proposed as the likeliest place to look for answers-a free market where family schools, entrepreneurial schools, religious schools, crafts schools, and farm schools, would exist in profusion to compete with compulsory government monopoly mass-schooling.Throw off the shackles of formal schooling and embark upon a rich journey of self-directed, life-long learningĪfter over 100 years of mandatory schooling in the U.S., literacy rates have dropped, families are fragmented, learning 'disabilities' are skyrocketing, and children and youth are increasingly disaffected. It is suggested that independent study, community service, large doses of solitude, and a variety of different apprenticeships with adults in all walks of life are keys to helping children break the thrall of a conforming society. The book argues that between schooling and television, children have little time to learn for themselves-about the community they live in, or the lives they might lead instead, they are schooled to obey orders and become smoothly functioning cogs in the industrial machine. The five essays in this book criticize the 'deadening heart' of compulsory state schooling, described as a series of assumptions and structures that stamp out the self-knowledge, curiosity, concentration and solitude essential to learning-a system wherein education and schooling are mutually exclusive terms.

The hidden curriculum of compulsory schooling