"Schools train individuals to respond as a mass. Boys and girls are drilled in being bored, frightened, envious, emotionally needy, generally incomplete. A successful mass production economy requires such a clientele. A small business, small farm economy like that of the Amish requires individual competence, thoughtfulness, compassion, and universal participation; our own requires a managed mass of leveled, spiritless, anxious, familyless, friendless, godless, and obedient people who believe the difference between Cheers and Seinfeld is a subject worth arguing about."
John Taylor Gatto - 'The Underground History of American Education' (from the chapter 'Bad character as a management tool'.)
6 comments:
Pretty interesting. Do you think any modern schooling has worked?
Modern schooling works very well - to do what this quote points out. If you check out the book from which the quote is drawn you will see why modern schooling is intentionally like this.
Also, the child of friends of mine, who could read and add up at the age of three is forgetting how, at the age of four, in the state school system. It was the same in my time. In infants school, my mother was angry to receive a note instructing her to ensure I didn't read more than five pages of the book I'd been given, as I was reading "too fast".
To understand why state schooling is the way it is, you must look into its founders, and see what they intended.
In the days of slavery, it was forbidden for slaves to read. It is not difficult to imagine why this was so. The same attitude of contempt, driven by the supposed need to keep the 'workforce' ignorant and compliant is very clearly indicated in the work of those that instituted our schooling system which, rather than providing education, acts as an innoculation against it.
I'm reading the book at the moment, and hope to write more once I've done that, as it's a mine of information.
Teachers are all petty bureacrats, jobsworths and control freaks nowadays.
You can understand why so many people who'd make great teachers can't be bothered to take the intellectual lobotomy that the state system requires before being trusted to front a classroom. Think of all the people later in their working lives with a wealth of experience who are excluded because they won't join 'the party' (in its Orwellian sense).
I repeat though, the fundamental problem is the ideological foundation the state schooling system is built upon, shown clearly in John Taylor Gatto's research. The same people that wanted to sterilise a young woman because her father was a drunk, who believed in the 'scientific management' of society.
I went through the whole process and got turned down last year. I was prepared to take a £8k pay cut. I scored well in all the tests and the front of class assessment. I got turned down. None of my teaching friends understood why. I think I did.
aDM (i cannot get comments to work)
p.s Re your comments on my blog. i always like what you say Trooper. I do think over the stuff you write and post. I never dismiss arguments with you because you make me think.
I think i agree with you about guns. Maybe that's essentially because there is no justice in this world and i dont trust the system. Rule of Law sounds good but means nothing - to me)
That's kind of you to say. Interestingly on guns, there was another shooting incident at a church in Colorado at the weekend. This time the killer was shot down by a woman at the church. He'd already killed two girls outside, so not a lot to celebrate, but if there hadn't been anyone armed, who knows how many more would have been killed?
As for being turned down, what was it, if you think you know? Weren't you ideologically reliable? Or were the wizzened hags jealous of your feminine charms?
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