Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest.
Interpretation
The quote questions the necessity of traditional schooling as a forced routine rather than focusing on genuine education.
John Taylor Gatto critiques the conventional education system, suggesting that it imposes a rigid and monotonous routine that may not be beneficial for real learning. He challenges the perception that traditional schooling, which consists of a strict schedule of classes, is essential for education, pointing out the success of homeschooling as an alternative that fosters happiness and fulfillment without the constraints of a standard school system.
In practice
During a school board meeting, one could quote this to advocate for alternative education methods.
School presents daily exercises in dis-association. It forces unwelcome associations on most of its prisoners. It sets petty, meaningless competitions in motion on a daily basis, pitting potential associates against one another in contests for praise and other worthless prizes.
School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned.
School is about learning to wait your turn, however long it takes to come, if ever. And how to submit with a show of enthusiasm to the judgment of strangers, even if they are wrong, even if your enthusiasm is phony.
It was never factually true that young people learn to read or do arithmetic primarily by being taught these things. These things are learned, but not really taught at all. Over-teaching interferes with learning, although the few who survive it may well come to imagine it was by an act of teaching.
It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to listen to a stranger reading poetry when you want to learn to construct buildings, or to sit with a stranger discussing the construction of buildings when you want to read poetry.
The primary goal of real education is not to deliver facts but to guide students to the truths that will allow them to take responsibility for their lives.
Good teaching must be slow enough so that it is not confusing, and fast enough so that it is not boring.
We need the books that affect us like a disaster
I like my job because it involves learning. I like being around smart people who are trying to figure out new things. I like the fact that if people really try they can figure out how to invent things that actually have an impact.
Bilingualism lets you have your cake and eat it. The new language opens the doors to the best jobs in society; the old language allows you to keep your sense of 'who you are.' It preserves your identity. With two languages, you have the best of both worlds.
I just love learning. I think learning is how you live. The verb of my life is learning.
There's no such thing as knowledge management;_x000D_ _x000D_ there are only knowledgeable people._x000D_ _x000D_ Information only becomes knowledge_x000D_ _x000D_ in the hands of someone_x000D_ _x000D_ who knows what to do with it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.