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A book by John Taylor Gatto explains the origin of [modern] school. Briefly: during the industrial revolution in the 1800s, industrial owners realized children

A book by John Taylor Gatto explains the origin of [modern] school. Briefly: during the industrial revolution in the 1800s, industrial owners realized children were "wasting" their time playing around. If instead they could be pre-trained to be better workers ... so they designed modern school and institutionalized it.

davidw 18y ago
This seems to be one of those theories that sounds nice, but is in reality just someone's politics creeping into their view of history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_education#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_education#History I personally loathed school, was homeschooled for a year by my mother who was desperate to get me out of a shitty system, and am certainly no fan of said system, but this article and the debate here remind me why I'm not so enthusiastic about non-startup/hacker material: you guys' comments are, so far, on the whole, not terribly insightful on the subject. I mean, it is a bad system in many ways, but so are other things like democracies and free markets. That doesn't mean they aren't the best that we currently have. Just look at places where people don't have the guarantee of an education, if you want an example of what things could be like. Tons of kids in Africa would love to have the "crappy" education that is on offer in the US or Europe, because it would be the beginnings of a way out of the poverty in which they live. Can it be improved? Certainly, but "just git the dadburn gummint outta the way" is, to put it mildly, a bit simplistic for something that even folks like Friedman more or less concede is a merit good ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_good ). It's easy to point out the (many) flaws in the current system, which probably wasn't that pleasant for many of us here. More difficult is coming up with something that could take its place, provide an educated populace, and best allocate people to the educational paths that would serve them best, and of course does all this in a way that is reasonably cost effective, all with a "clientèle" that may very well be quite immature in terms of making important decisions. This is no easy task.
- albertcardona 18y ago
  True. Please note: "modern school": a tax-sponsored child care system that free parents for work, and ensures minimal literacy and composed conduct in public.
- whalliburton 18y ago
  If you had read the article in question you would see that there is much more depth and analysis and yes ideas for a possible change than your caricature. As for your "kids in Africa", Illich talks much in this article about the young in Latin America and the damaging effects of compulsory education on those children. Please read. But in case your too busy, I'll try and summarize: You take your "kids in Africa", whom probably, as you state, all would "love" to attend American schools and believe the American dream. Let's not forget that many of them would probably love to eat at MacDonalds every meal too, but that not necessarily the best thing either. Now, what happens to the those kids that cannot pass 12 years of compulsory education (he only uses 4 in the Latin case, but your talking USA) and are now inside a system that requires passing those 12 years. They are now seen as failures and most will internalize that branding. Not nice. The point I'm trying to make, is, yea, call many of the comments "not insightful", but unless you read the article in question, your only displaying flippant ignorance to call it out for lacking insight.
  - davidw 18y ago
    > Let's not forget that many of them would probably love to eat at MacDonalds every meal too, but that not necessarily the best thing either. It would beat starving, I bet. > The point I'm trying to make, is, yea, call many of the comments "not insightful", but unless you read the article in question, your only displaying flippant ignorance to call it out for lacking insight. I read some random samplings, and it just seems way too handwavy, and full of random assertions, rather than, say, hard facts, for my tastes. To take his idea of matching people up for learning: might work ok for adults, but it's not going to function to give kids a basic education, unless they're already in a school, and in that case it's still compulsory education.
- bokonist 18y ago
  More difficult is coming up with something that could take its place, provide an educated populace, and best allocate people to the educational paths that would serve them best Well, for starters, we could return exactly to the system of, say, 1890. Most people had enough formal schooling to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. After that, you could learn on the job or through apprenticeship. Professions such as architects or engineers required 0 - 4 years of post-secondary education. High school drop outs designed great structures such as the New York Public Library, the tunnels under London, or the California aqueducts. Now legal credentialing laws mandate architects have 5-8 years of university. Yet the architecture of the late 1800's is far, far, far superior to the architecture of today. Perhaps if we abolished the architecture schools altogether, and the professors had to find new careers in, say, stone masonry, people would build beautiful buildings again... The trouble with the idea that "the truth is somewhere in the middle" is that the middle changes through time and place. For example, the average voter in 1900 was a hard-core libertarian compared to the average voter today. If you lived in 1900 would you be libertarian? What ideology would you have if you lived in 1965 China? Was the truth somewhere in between Deng and Mao? You accuse the people who say "government should get out of the way" as being simplistic. But to me, the people who automatically believe the truth is always in the middle are even more simplistic. The only way to find the answers is find it for yourself. I was once far more liberal/progressive. But after numerous life experiences, plus concentrated reading on almost every political subject, I have come to believe that the far right libertarians ( ie, more libertarian than even Milton Friedman) are the closest to being correct. Imagine you were in a conversation with a 1900 libertarian. What evidence from the world of 2008 would you show him that would prove his libertarianism wrong? Would you show him our bombed out inner cities as evidence of the glories of the welfare state? ( compare a 1900 account of the slums, http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=8kEAAAAAYAAJ&dq=the+slums+of+baltimore+chicago+new+york&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=_ZCcPFQvPC&sig=9_23__B3M4QUdLRjtPGhdxpQvIo&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=8kEAAAAAYAAJ&... to a modern account like "The Corner" or "Gang Leader for a day" ) Would you show him the public schools? The fine learning going on at our state colleges? Would you show him the wonderful Brutalist buildings that our fully credentialed architects produce? Do you think you could convince him that creating a Federal Reserve made the financial system more stable? As for the original question about the origins of American public schooling - I don't think Gatto is completely right, but he's much closer to the truth than 99% of Americans would realize. A few years ago I took a course on the history of American education. I was shocked to find the progressives who created American schooling did not care at all about students learning or even job training. The original reasons were about Americanizing and assimilation of immigrants in American values. Later on, the emphasis shifted more towards socialization. Actual learning did not become the primary goal until the much later on. The irony is that public schools were originally created by the upper class progressives to control the lower classes. But by 1980, the elimination of tracking and the restrictions of disciplinary actions made public schools uninhabitable by upper class children, thus forcing them into home schooling or expensive private schools.
- Alex3917 18y ago
  Actually Gatto is correct, it's just that the grandparent's summary of Gatto is wrong. And, for the record, the Wikipedia article you cited also contains factual mistakes.

davidw 18y ago

This seems to be one of those theories that sounds nice, but is in reality just someone's politics creeping into their view of history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_education#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_education#History I personally loathed school, was homeschooled for a year by my mother who was desperate to get me out of a shitty system, and am certainly no fan of said system, but this article and the debate here remind me why I'm not so enthusiastic about non-startup/hacker material: you guys' comments are, so far, on the whole, not terribly insightful on the subject. I mean, it is a bad system in many ways, but so are other things like democracies and free markets. That doesn't mean they aren't the best that we currently have. Just look at places where people don't have the guarantee of an education, if you want an example of what things could be like. Tons of kids in Africa would love to have the "crappy" education that is on offer in the US or Europe, because it would be the beginnings of a way out of the poverty in which they live. Can it be improved? Certainly, but "just git the dadburn gummint outta the way" is, to put it mildly, a bit simplistic for something that even folks like Friedman more or less concede is a merit good ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_good ). It's easy to point out the (many) flaws in the current system, which probably wasn't that pleasant for many of us here. More difficult is coming up with something that could take its place, provide an educated populace, and best allocate people to the educational paths that would serve them best, and of course does all this in a way that is reasonably cost effective, all with a "clientèle" that may very well be quite immature in terms of making important decisions. This is no easy task.

albertcardona 18y ago
True. Please note: "modern school": a tax-sponsored child care system that free parents for work, and ensures minimal literacy and composed conduct in public.
whalliburton 18y ago
If you had read the article in question you would see that there is much more depth and analysis and yes ideas for a possible change than your caricature. As for your "kids in Africa", Illich talks much in this article about the young in Latin America and the damaging effects of compulsory education on those children. Please read. But in case your too busy, I'll try and summarize: You take your "kids in Africa", whom probably, as you state, all would "love" to attend American schools and believe the American dream. Let's not forget that many of them would probably love to eat at MacDonalds every meal too, but that not necessarily the best thing either. Now, what happens to the those kids that cannot pass 12 years of compulsory education (he only uses 4 in the Latin case, but your talking USA) and are now inside a system that requires passing those 12 years. They are now seen as failures and most will internalize that branding. Not nice. The point I'm trying to make, is, yea, call many of the comments "not insightful", but unless you read the article in question, your only displaying flippant ignorance to call it out for lacking insight.
- davidw 18y ago
  > Let's not forget that many of them would probably love to eat at MacDonalds every meal too, but that not necessarily the best thing either. It would beat starving, I bet. > The point I'm trying to make, is, yea, call many of the comments "not insightful", but unless you read the article in question, your only displaying flippant ignorance to call it out for lacking insight. I read some random samplings, and it just seems way too handwavy, and full of random assertions, rather than, say, hard facts, for my tastes. To take his idea of matching people up for learning: might work ok for adults, but it's not going to function to give kids a basic education, unless they're already in a school, and in that case it's still compulsory education.
bokonist 18y ago
More difficult is coming up with something that could take its place, provide an educated populace, and best allocate people to the educational paths that would serve them best Well, for starters, we could return exactly to the system of, say, 1890. Most people had enough formal schooling to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. After that, you could learn on the job or through apprenticeship. Professions such as architects or engineers required 0 - 4 years of post-secondary education. High school drop outs designed great structures such as the New York Public Library, the tunnels under London, or the California aqueducts. Now legal credentialing laws mandate architects have 5-8 years of university. Yet the architecture of the late 1800's is far, far, far superior to the architecture of today. Perhaps if we abolished the architecture schools altogether, and the professors had to find new careers in, say, stone masonry, people would build beautiful buildings again... The trouble with the idea that "the truth is somewhere in the middle" is that the middle changes through time and place. For example, the average voter in 1900 was a hard-core libertarian compared to the average voter today. If you lived in 1900 would you be libertarian? What ideology would you have if you lived in 1965 China? Was the truth somewhere in between Deng and Mao? You accuse the people who say "government should get out of the way" as being simplistic. But to me, the people who automatically believe the truth is always in the middle are even more simplistic. The only way to find the answers is find it for yourself. I was once far more liberal/progressive. But after numerous life experiences, plus concentrated reading on almost every political subject, I have come to believe that the far right libertarians ( ie, more libertarian than even Milton Friedman) are the closest to being correct. Imagine you were in a conversation with a 1900 libertarian. What evidence from the world of 2008 would you show him that would prove his libertarianism wrong? Would you show him our bombed out inner cities as evidence of the glories of the welfare state? ( compare a 1900 account of the slums, http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=8kEAAAAAYAAJ&dq=the+slums+of+baltimore+chicago+new+york&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=_ZCcPFQvPC&sig=9_23__B3M4QUdLRjtPGhdxpQvIo&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=8kEAAAAAYAAJ&... to a modern account like "The Corner" or "Gang Leader for a day" ) Would you show him the public schools? The fine learning going on at our state colleges? Would you show him the wonderful Brutalist buildings that our fully credentialed architects produce? Do you think you could convince him that creating a Federal Reserve made the financial system more stable? As for the original question about the origins of American public schooling - I don't think Gatto is completely right, but he's much closer to the truth than 99% of Americans would realize. A few years ago I took a course on the history of American education. I was shocked to find the progressives who created American schooling did not care at all about students learning or even job training. The original reasons were about Americanizing and assimilation of immigrants in American values. Later on, the emphasis shifted more towards socialization. Actual learning did not become the primary goal until the much later on. The irony is that public schools were originally created by the upper class progressives to control the lower classes. But by 1980, the elimination of tracking and the restrictions of disciplinary actions made public schools uninhabitable by upper class children, thus forcing them into home schooling or expensive private schools.
Alex3917 18y ago
Actually Gatto is correct, it's just that the grandparent's summary of Gatto is wrong. And, for the record, the Wikipedia article you cited also contains factual mistakes.