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A Reader’s Review
By Phyllis Titus
For quite some time, I’ve heard the term, “dumbed
down”, but not until recently did I learn where the
term originated or exactly what it meant. John Taylor Gatto,
1991 New York State Teacher of the Year, coined the phrase
back in 1992 when he wrote “Dumbing Us Down—The
Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling.”
“Dumbing Us Down” (New Society Publishers)
is slightly over 100 pages of eye-opening speeches and award-winning
essays written by Mr. Gatto, in which he gives us an insider’s
look at compulsory schooling, and perhaps without intending,
provides great encouragement for those of us who’ve
chosen the homeschooling option.
He repeatedly draws a stark contrast between teaching (or
“schooling” as he calls it), and true learning
and education. He further warns us to not “be fooled
into thinking that good curriculum or good equipment or
good teachers are the critical determinants of your son’s
or daughter’s education. . .the lessons of school
prevent children from keeping important appointments with
themselves and with their families to learn lessons in self-motivation,
perseverance, self-reliance, courage, dignity, and love-and
lessons in service to others, too, which are among the key
lessons of home and community life.”
Furthermore, he adds that “The feeding frenzy of
formal schooling has already wounded us seriously in our
ability to form families and communities, by bleeding away
time we need with our children and our children need with
us. That’s why I say we need less school, not more.”
According to Mr. Gatto, there are seven lessons comprising
today’s “national curriculum” that are
“universally taught from Harlem to Hollywood Hills”
and that these “lessons of school teaching—confusion,
class position, indifference, emotional and intellectual
dependency, conditional self-esteem and surveillance—all
of these lessons are prime training for permanent underclasses,
people deprived forever of finding the center of their own
special genius.” And, isn’t that what all of
want-To help each of our children find the center of his
or her own special genius and to give each one the time
to learn the most important lessons?
Mr. Gatto truly has lifted the level of discourse on the
subject of education. “Whatever an education is,”
he says, “it should make you a unique individual,
not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original
spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should
allow you to find values which will be your road map through
life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who
loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever
you are with; it should teach you what is important, how
to live and how to die.” Every parent of school-aged
children should read this book, and it should be a centerpiece
of every homeschool library, as a continual reminder that
there truly is more to education than just school.
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