12 ms·

Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

117 points by cm_silva 4y ago

cpr 4y ago
Gatto is a true prophet. See his writings at https://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ https://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ (though his site is having some problems, it looks like).
bluSCALE4 4y ago
Amazing this came out 22 years ago. It must be thinkers like these that created schools like Cristo Rey in Chicago where kids get bused around the city working real jobs, alternating every so often. But back to this being 22 years old... the internet wasn't really even a thing back then. If TV was a threat, then the internet is a bomb. Unfortunately, I don't see things getting any better, even in "good" schools. I'm at least happy that I've read this so I can adjust my parenting to promote more individualism.
fiftyfifty 4y ago
Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xHi_lK2Nr70J:https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/175/why-schools-dont-educate&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xHi_lK...
hourago 4y ago
> But our society is disintegrating, and in such a society, the only successful people are self-reliant, confident, and individualistic — because the community life that protects the dependent and the weak is dead. Too many people has apocalyptic views of the world. And to push for individualistic behavior when you think that your society is disintegrating seems to just accelerate any problems that may exists. 30 years later the collapse still has not happened. > The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory; I have yet to see a child that is not curious, you need some war-level trauma to stop children curiosity. I would guess that the author real complain is that children are not interested in the same things that him, and that is why he is pissed off. > they’re just nice kids from central Harlem, bright and alert, but so badly schooled when they came to me that most of them couldn’t add or subtract with any fluency. I am all for better schools and I can not even imagine how bad schooling has been in mainly black neighborhoods but to "just let the kids learn by themselves" seems as absurd as the idea of "tabula rasa". Kids need to learn to learn but they also need to be taught. > The Swedes realized this in 1976, when they effectively abandoned state adoption of unwanted children and instead spent national time and treasure on reinforcing the original family so that children born to Swedes were wanted. This one is interesting as Abortion laws are changing in the USA. > Family is the main engine of education. This makes sense. I just think that schools also have their place no only for education but as socializing places. > to promote during school time confluences of parent and child that will strengthen family bonds. Sweden has a generous parental leave. That is a good way of achieving this goal. In general the article expresses a too extreme view of things. But it has some good points even if I do not agree with all the conclusions.
- tsol 4y ago
  > The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory; If that curiosity is all satisfied at home on youtube/television then kids really won't much real curiosity for school. Kids are curious but not about everything all the time
  - Spivak 4y ago
    There is nothing more sure to kill your love of anything than to have it be taught at school. Like come on, we were stuck in the boredom cube for 6ish hours a day, the alternative is nothing and most of us still didn't pay attention.
    - grendelt 4y ago
      > than to have it be taught at school. than to have it be taught IN A BORING WAY WITHOUT CONTEXT Learning my multiplication tables was fun when it was turned into a race with my friends. Memorizing the state capitals and abbreviations was fun when it was turned into a game. You can turn most anything into a fun way of learning it with just a modicum of effort. One problem is too many teachers get beat down to only teach what they are told to teach through some ready-made commercial curriculum. We have a huge number of teachers who are poorly paid. Too many run-ins with difficulty and admins who want things done their way, and that teacher's lifelong career gets sapped of any joy and they default to just teaching as they're told to teach. If education was better funded in order to pay teachers very competitive wages, you'd attract more can-do teachers to the field instead of bright eyed young college graduates who end up leaving the profession within the first 5 years because of how stifling the bureaucracy of it all is. Pay the job well to attract and retain the best and brightest and you'll get amazing results through creativity and mastery of the art of education. We don't do that, so you often get what you pay for.
      - kansface 4y ago
        Is fixing the stifling bureaucracy is out of the question?
vector_spaces 4y ago
Wow, it's wild to see this here. About 20 years ago, a grief counselor I was seeing after the death of my mom shared this article with me after I told him about how school felt pointless and cruel. I stopped seeing that grief counselor not long after (I think my family couldn't afford to see him) but the impact of this essay was deep. It was the first piece of writing I had read by 14 that critiqued something as mundane and entrenched as the public school system in the United States, and in terms that spoke to my experiences. It inspired me to start honing my writing skills with intentionality, and sharpened my interest in activism. I have mixed feelings reading this article now -- it's not quite as well written as I remember, although I still agree with many of the critiques.
- nosianu 4y ago
  Just an unimportant comment about a minor aspect of what you wrote. > it's not quite as well written as I remember, Maybe because it is a speech? :-) > What follows is the text of the speech he gave upon being named Teacher of the Year. We don't know if the words were said exactly as written, or how it was delivered, which often is more important than the text itself.
  - vector_spaces 4y ago
    Yes, I know very well -- I thought about qualifying with that in my comment, thought it probably wasn't necessary, and as usual HN was swift in delivering justice/pedantry :D
tboyd47 4y ago
> Using school as a sorting mechanism, we appear to be on the way to creating a caste system, complete with untouchables who wander through subway trains begging and sleep on the streets. Wow, he nailed that one, didn't he? > But keep in mind that in the United States almost nobody who reads, writes, or does arithmetic gets much respect. We are a land of talkers; we pay talkers the most and admire talkers the most, and so our children talk constantly, following the public models of television and schoolteachers. In 2022, replace talking with dancing. > The children I teach are cruel to each other; they lack compassion for misfortune, they laugh at weakness, and they have contempt for people whose need for help shows too plainly. Played any multiplayer FPS recently? > But no large-scale reform is ever going to repair our damaged children and our damaged society until we force the idea of “school” open — to include family as the main engine of education. As he proves a few paragraphs later, this is the one thing the school system will never do because the two institutions (school and family) are in direct competition with each other for the hearts and minds of children.
ok_dad 4y ago
I have another recent comment where I lament that the rise of intelligent machines will lead to humans being looked on as just another machine to do a job by those with ultimate power in our society, but according to this, we have already become those machine cogs. Instead of trying to produce a "whole person" out of the schooling system in America, we are trying to produce specialized devices for the performance of certain tasks. Some of the students are sorted into the "high power devices" bin (lawyers, programmers, etc.), some into the "low power device" bin (manual labor), and some into the rubbish bin (physically disabled, mentally ill, etc.). Much like Intel bins their chips, in fact. Once you bin the parts from the school system, then you start to ship those parts throughout the workforce, or perhaps do some modifications to them in a university to achieve the most optimal output. I guess there were a lot of people who saw this before me, and I am sure that like them my view will never get mainstream traction. Someday, perhaps, an AI will be developed to read our internet comments, and I'll be labeled as someone who needs maintenance and shipped off to a re-education facility.
hintymad 4y ago
> The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory Maybe kids are just not curious about what the author teaches? As a parent, I have to admit that kids are not necessarily curious about what we value. My kids are not curious about STEM, at least not yet. They are, however, are very curious about how to use TNT in minecraft, or how to learn cartwheel. It's unfortunate (or forutnate?) that not every one is born curious about STEM or any subject like their teachers or parents do.
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  Very much this, and it shouldn't even be a shocking revelation to most people. Nobody I know in my life enjoyed every subject they were taught in school. At best, they had 1 or 2 subjects they could be called curious about. Many had none (that were taught in school). And even then, the schooling I went through hardly rewarded curiousness. You were incentivized to cram information to pass tests, so that you could get good grades, to get into good colleges, to cram more information to the pass more tests, to get good grades. Even when my teachers seems to enjoy curious students, the curriculum was certainly not structured to incentivize it.
  - hintymad 4y ago
    > You were incentivized to cram information to pass tests I thought there was a solution: teachers give good questions for homework and exams. When I was in school, I rarely got repeated questions. Most questions challenged my understanding of fundamentals. It's hard to believe that people who only cram can ever get decent grades in tests like IIT's JEE, China's National Entrance Exam, or Japan's university entrance exams, or Korea's national entrance exams. As for the US, it's hard to imagine that anyone can solve decently hard problems in textbooks like Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics or Cormen et el's Introduction to Algorithms (The US does not mandate challenging problems in high schools, so I use examples from college).
- thrown_22 4y ago
  Teach them about red stone and you're teaming them programming.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
fiftyfifty 4y ago
I just don't think I can agree with Gatto's main premise that schools aren't educating students or that a formal education serves no purpose in the modern world. We have seen world wide that schools are THE most effective tool for lifting people out of poverty. We also see that the countries with the best schools are dominating the world economy. There are also plenty of counter examples we can find: entire countries without well organized compulsory education systems that have incredibly high rates of illiteracy and poverty. Here we are 25 years after Gatto gave this speech, our society has not "disintegrated" yet, Well-schooled people are far from irrelevant, in fact they have given us nearly every single modern comfort and technological breakthrough in modern history and they have continued to do so over the last 25 years. What Gatto is proposing would just create even more inequality and social injustice, where only parents with the means to see their children get a good education can do so, either by having the background and time to homeschool or the money to provide private schooling or tutors for their own children.
- hitpointdrew 4y ago
  > We have seen world wide that schools are THE most effective tool for lifting people out of poverty. This is false. Schooling has had nothing to do with it, capitalism is what has lifted the most people out of poverty, not schooling.
  - bjornsing 4y ago
    Isn’t basic schooling a prerequisite for successful capitalism though? (May sound snarky but a genuine question.)
    - hitpointdrew 4y ago
      This is a fair question. I would argue no. As the article alludes, schooling in general hinders/squishes the entrepreneurial (independent) spirits and instills a risk aversion behavior not conducive to starting a business. There an impressive list of billionaires that either dropped out of college, or didn't even attend (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Walt Disney, Debbi Fields, Mary Kay Ash, and Wayne Huizenga, just to name a few).
Test0129 4y ago
I have nothing of value to add to this. This speech encapsulates my experience in school growing up America and my experience now watching the children in my family grow up. It sums up the cause and effect of all of it exactly as I had supposed and hearing it from a person with actual authority makes it all the more meaningful. Schools, especially K-12, have always felt like a prison and this author put it in a way I couldn't even begin to write. More people should read this. It may be the most important document on the state of the American education system in it's history and it's a full 3 decades old.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Off topic but why are there so many fairly fresh accounts posting hot takes that reach high on the front page lately?
- cm_silva 4y ago
  I just happened to find this article today. It was well written and resonated with my experiences and what I found school to be, as a child growing up. I thought it was a good submission for HN.
tempie_deleteme 4y ago
because they teach. the difference being drawing (evoking, pulling) something already there out of the student (education). versus putting some knowledge from the outside inside of the student (teaching).
rgrieselhuber 4y ago
The Ultimate History Lesson: A Weekend with John Taylor Gatto [1] is a (long) revealing look into the history of education in the United States. I don't agree with everything but certainly had my assumptions challenged. As more families choose to eschew government schools, it's hard to argue that he was not ahead of his time with his observations. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQiW_l848t8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQiW_l848t8
RankingMember 4y ago
> My children watch fifty-five hours of television a week, according to recent reports. Would love to have been able to see a source on that whopper- even in the days before most had computers, I don't see any reporting showing ~8 hours a day of consumption for children.
- jppope 4y ago
  quick google search: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/when-did-tv-watching-peak/561464/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/when-... I know that the US census had the average at like 6 hrs a day. No matter what the real number is... its a lot
  - RankingMember 4y ago
    Yeah I saw that but those numbers are by household, not children-specific. ~8 hours is a lot to claim for an average child (even in 1990) and I wasn't able to find anything backing it up.
hintymad 4y ago
> "just let the kids learn by themselves" This has been the central theme of progressive education movement in the US. IIRC, Jo Boaler has been advocating that kids could discover most of the maths by exploring and learning by themselves. I fundamentally disagree with this belief, though. It took thousands of years for our greatest minds to simplify our maths to its current incarnation. Discovering "everything" by myself wastes my time and reduces my chance of working on something more meaningful.
- nus07 4y ago
  Totally agree. Which countries are dominating STEM education? Israel, Russia, China , India and a few others which have strict schedules, competition and discipline. Looking at the failing US model I am starting to believe that finding your path and self motivation may work for 5% while leading the other 95% to slacking , cheap entertainment and failure.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Discipline is dead here (US). Very few people have discipline as adults, so the kids don't learn it either. Society doesn't value it, so it generally doest pay off. I used to show up early to work, took my responsibilities seriously, and not take shortcuts. Guess what? I get paid the same either way, so what's the point? We're "fat and happy", so something would have to change culturally.
    - fineIllregister 4y ago
      > I used to show up early to work, took my responsibilities seriously, and not take shortcuts. Guess what? I get paid the same either way, so what's the point? What do you imagine happens in Israel, Russia, India, or China when people do that? They get profit sharing? Seems unlikely.
      - giantg2 4y ago
        "What do you imagine happens in Israel, Russia, India, or China when people do that?" They don't get fired, maybe get a raise or promotion. In the US, you won't get fired for doing the minimum because they don't have anyone to replace you with who would be better.
giantg2 4y ago
There seem to be some good points in here. I'm not sure I agree with all of them, but the conclusion that family is important to learning seems to be true in my experience. Many parents get so hung up on the "best" schools they ignore their own possible contributions. Eg work 50-80 hours a week, never teach their kids anything, and complain when the school or after school activity is doing something "wrong" because their kid isn't a star. Unfortunately home schooling isn't an option for most, even if it is possibly one of the best options within the current system (atleast education wise, not for the conformity). "Our teenage-suicide rate is the highest in the world — and suicidal kids are rich kids for the most part, not poor. In Manhattan, 70 percent of all new marriages last less than five years." These are very interesting and maybe I'll do some more research on these.
emeth 4y ago
From the article: > But I am confident that as they gain self-knowledge, they’ll also become self-teachers — and only self-teaching has any lasting value. Makes me think of Dorothy Sayer's 1948 article, The Lost Tools of Learning [0]. [0]: https://www.pccs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/LostToolsOfLearning-DorothySayers.pdf https://www.pccs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/LostToolsOfL...
dieselgate 4y ago
This is a really well written article though I’m mixed in my agreements with it. Thought it was funny they mentioned the author “growing garlic” in the forward. It’s also curious to read about literacy rates before/after “compulsory” education and how they seemingly dropped - is this potentially because of different “standards” in defining literacy? I feel everything I’ve ever learned was “taught to myself” even though I’ve spent close to two decades in school. Of course a teacher can catalyze the process by presenting material in an organized way. They say “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” and at first this seemed like an appropriate analogy for learning - but after some reflection is only partly relevant. Peer groups can be beneficial with catalyzing learning as well - of course it depends on the peers. This is a big topic but found it refreshing to be exposed to some novel (and old) thoughts
- jazzyjackson 4y ago
  > “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” this is an especially apt metaphor for compulsory education, because when a horse is thirsty, it is perfectly capable of finding water on its own
  - dieselgate 4y ago
    I agree with you and thanks for bringing it up. My reasoning for only "partially" applying the metaphor is classrooms are often at least a couple dozen students and potentially if "a few horses or more are drinking" others might follow their lead.
HereIGoAgain 4y ago
The problem is that schools, especially in the west, have totally lost the plot! We need to get back to its original and sole purpose. Teaching young people the basic skills needed to work in society. As well as the skills needed to move onto secondary education and vocational training. The fact that so much time and effort is spent on things other than core subjects, even while we graduate children who fail at one or more of said subjects, is inexcusable. It also makes efforts to push things like political/social activism and issues onto children, all the more infuriating! (not to mention the real harm and derangement doing so causes to children and young people's mental health)
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  Could you expand on what you believe are "core" subjects?
  - HereIGoAgain 4y ago
    Reading, writing, MATH, basic science, basic computer literacy and true more generalized home economics/shop type stuff. (basically from understanding bills and legal stuff to basic repair etc) Stuff needed to actually live in society and the tools to START more advanced educational or vocational endeavors. Other stuff should come second, if it all in a mandatory school system.
pneumatic1 4y ago
There’s a book called Dumbing Us Down that is a collection of his essays. I liked it. I’m glad I read it after I finished school and before my kids start.
diffxx 4y ago
For anyone interested in the arguments in this piece, Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich is highly recommended.
hot_gril 4y ago
The author compares American education to other industrialized nations at the start but never brings up those comparisons again. The radical ideas he proposes aren't implemented in other countries AFAIK. What makes the US different?
hot_gril 4y ago
There are things I learned in school and didn't understand their importance for a while. That's fine. But it hurts to see kids learning some things they will never use, or missing more important things. English/reading is way overemphasized, and overly focused on emotional fictional literature. Sorry, I don't give a damn how Juliette feels; maybe I can pretend to care for a year, but 9 years? It didn't matter later in life that I got Bs in English, despite it actually being a useful subject. Maybe this is where the US curriculum differs from other countries the most. Economics should be part of the standard curriculum. Plenty of average people participate in an economy every day without understanding it, other than having street smarts. Math class is seemingly based around the final destination of Calculus AB or BC, but calculus is overly specific if you think about it. Sure, teach the basics, but don't drill the kids for months on solving integrals with trig sub for one. There are so many other math subjects that get ignored. Math proofs are basically nonexistent in high school. Everything is just thrown at you then becomes a game of memorizing algorithms and crunching numbers. I get why so many kids don't like it. History is OK but usually lacks connection to current events.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > and overly focused on emotional fictional literature Isn't that what people read for fun? If you have to teach reading and grammar, I'm sure that there are worse choices. And you do need some serious background in Calculus for most college-level STEM fields, including probability/statistics/data science. I do agree that the social sciences (including Econ, but not only!) are seriously missing in school education, and it's quite silly to teach so much history/literature/natural science/math even as we ignore them altogether. Teaching math proofs is really, really hard. Even most college math majors don't really learn them all that well. Maybe if proof assistants develop to the point where it can be a fully "gamified" subject, it could work in K-12.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    > Isn't that what people read for fun? If you have to teach reading and grammar, I'm sure that there are worse choices. My classmates and I always read books for fun, and none of them were the kinds of books in English class. They were more adventurous things like Narnia, Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter, and Ender's Game. Also seemed like the girls could tolerate the English class books a lot better, which felt unfair. Looking back, the only time I enjoyed the books was the one year I had a male English teacher picking them. > And you do need some serious background in Calculus for most college-level STEM fields, including probability/statistics/data science. Sure I remember using calculus in those college fields, but it didn't require what I'd call a serious background in it. Students could just beef up their calculus skills on-demand if needed. I especially never used all that training in solving complicated integrals by hand, which was seemingly half of Calculus BC.
tmaly 4y ago
John Gatto has been on this rant forever. I think even years after this 90s post I could recall him in articles.

117 points by cm_silva 4y ago

cpr 4y ago

Gatto is a true prophet. See his writings at https://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ https://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ (though his site is having some problems, it looks like).

bluSCALE4 4y ago

Amazing this came out 22 years ago. It must be thinkers like these that created schools like Cristo Rey in Chicago where kids get bused around the city working real jobs, alternating every so often. But back to this being 22 years old... the internet wasn't really even a thing back then. If TV was a threat, then the internet is a bomb. Unfortunately, I don't see things getting any better, even in "good" schools. I'm at least happy that I've read this so I can adjust my parenting to promote more individualism.

fiftyfifty 4y ago

Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xHi_lK2Nr70J:https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/175/why-schools-dont-educate&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xHi_lK...

hourago 4y ago

> But our society is disintegrating, and in such a society, the only successful people are self-reliant, confident, and individualistic — because the community life that protects the dependent and the weak is dead. Too many people has apocalyptic views of the world. And to push for individualistic behavior when you think that your society is disintegrating seems to just accelerate any problems that may exists. 30 years later the collapse still has not happened. > The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory; I have yet to see a child that is not curious, you need some war-level trauma to stop children curiosity. I would guess that the author real complain is that children are not interested in the same things that him, and that is why he is pissed off. > they’re just nice kids from central Harlem, bright and alert, but so badly schooled when they came to me that most of them couldn’t add or subtract with any fluency. I am all for better schools and I can not even imagine how bad schooling has been in mainly black neighborhoods but to "just let the kids learn by themselves" seems as absurd as the idea of "tabula rasa". Kids need to learn to learn but they also need to be taught. > The Swedes realized this in 1976, when they effectively abandoned state adoption of unwanted children and instead spent national time and treasure on reinforcing the original family so that children born to Swedes were wanted. This one is interesting as Abortion laws are changing in the USA. > Family is the main engine of education. This makes sense. I just think that schools also have their place no only for education but as socializing places. > to promote during school time confluences of parent and child that will strengthen family bonds. Sweden has a generous parental leave. That is a good way of achieving this goal. In general the article expresses a too extreme view of things. But it has some good points even if I do not agree with all the conclusions.

tsol 4y ago
> The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory; If that curiosity is all satisfied at home on youtube/television then kids really won't much real curiosity for school. Kids are curious but not about everything all the time
- Spivak 4y ago
  There is nothing more sure to kill your love of anything than to have it be taught at school. Like come on, we were stuck in the boredom cube for 6ish hours a day, the alternative is nothing and most of us still didn't pay attention.
  - grendelt 4y ago
    > than to have it be taught at school. than to have it be taught IN A BORING WAY WITHOUT CONTEXT Learning my multiplication tables was fun when it was turned into a race with my friends. Memorizing the state capitals and abbreviations was fun when it was turned into a game. You can turn most anything into a fun way of learning it with just a modicum of effort. One problem is too many teachers get beat down to only teach what they are told to teach through some ready-made commercial curriculum. We have a huge number of teachers who are poorly paid. Too many run-ins with difficulty and admins who want things done their way, and that teacher's lifelong career gets sapped of any joy and they default to just teaching as they're told to teach. If education was better funded in order to pay teachers very competitive wages, you'd attract more can-do teachers to the field instead of bright eyed young college graduates who end up leaving the profession within the first 5 years because of how stifling the bureaucracy of it all is. Pay the job well to attract and retain the best and brightest and you'll get amazing results through creativity and mastery of the art of education. We don't do that, so you often get what you pay for.
    - kansface 4y ago
      Is fixing the stifling bureaucracy is out of the question?

vector_spaces 4y ago

Wow, it's wild to see this here. About 20 years ago, a grief counselor I was seeing after the death of my mom shared this article with me after I told him about how school felt pointless and cruel. I stopped seeing that grief counselor not long after (I think my family couldn't afford to see him) but the impact of this essay was deep. It was the first piece of writing I had read by 14 that critiqued something as mundane and entrenched as the public school system in the United States, and in terms that spoke to my experiences. It inspired me to start honing my writing skills with intentionality, and sharpened my interest in activism. I have mixed feelings reading this article now -- it's not quite as well written as I remember, although I still agree with many of the critiques.

nosianu 4y ago
Just an unimportant comment about a minor aspect of what you wrote. > it's not quite as well written as I remember, Maybe because it is a speech? :-) > What follows is the text of the speech he gave upon being named Teacher of the Year. We don't know if the words were said exactly as written, or how it was delivered, which often is more important than the text itself.
- vector_spaces 4y ago
  Yes, I know very well -- I thought about qualifying with that in my comment, thought it probably wasn't necessary, and as usual HN was swift in delivering justice/pedantry :D

tboyd47 4y ago

> Using school as a sorting mechanism, we appear to be on the way to creating a caste system, complete with untouchables who wander through subway trains begging and sleep on the streets. Wow, he nailed that one, didn't he? > But keep in mind that in the United States almost nobody who reads, writes, or does arithmetic gets much respect. We are a land of talkers; we pay talkers the most and admire talkers the most, and so our children talk constantly, following the public models of television and schoolteachers. In 2022, replace talking with dancing. > The children I teach are cruel to each other; they lack compassion for misfortune, they laugh at weakness, and they have contempt for people whose need for help shows too plainly. Played any multiplayer FPS recently? > But no large-scale reform is ever going to repair our damaged children and our damaged society until we force the idea of “school” open — to include family as the main engine of education. As he proves a few paragraphs later, this is the one thing the school system will never do because the two institutions (school and family) are in direct competition with each other for the hearts and minds of children.

ok_dad 4y ago

I have another recent comment where I lament that the rise of intelligent machines will lead to humans being looked on as just another machine to do a job by those with ultimate power in our society, but according to this, we have already become those machine cogs. Instead of trying to produce a "whole person" out of the schooling system in America, we are trying to produce specialized devices for the performance of certain tasks. Some of the students are sorted into the "high power devices" bin (lawyers, programmers, etc.), some into the "low power device" bin (manual labor), and some into the rubbish bin (physically disabled, mentally ill, etc.). Much like Intel bins their chips, in fact. Once you bin the parts from the school system, then you start to ship those parts throughout the workforce, or perhaps do some modifications to them in a university to achieve the most optimal output. I guess there were a lot of people who saw this before me, and I am sure that like them my view will never get mainstream traction. Someday, perhaps, an AI will be developed to read our internet comments, and I'll be labeled as someone who needs maintenance and shipped off to a re-education facility.

hintymad 4y ago

> The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory Maybe kids are just not curious about what the author teaches? As a parent, I have to admit that kids are not necessarily curious about what we value. My kids are not curious about STEM, at least not yet. They are, however, are very curious about how to use TNT in minecraft, or how to learn cartwheel. It's unfortunate (or forutnate?) that not every one is born curious about STEM or any subject like their teachers or parents do.

xboxnolifes 4y ago
Very much this, and it shouldn't even be a shocking revelation to most people. Nobody I know in my life enjoyed every subject they were taught in school. At best, they had 1 or 2 subjects they could be called curious about. Many had none (that were taught in school). And even then, the schooling I went through hardly rewarded curiousness. You were incentivized to cram information to pass tests, so that you could get good grades, to get into good colleges, to cram more information to the pass more tests, to get good grades. Even when my teachers seems to enjoy curious students, the curriculum was certainly not structured to incentivize it.
- hintymad 4y ago
  > You were incentivized to cram information to pass tests I thought there was a solution: teachers give good questions for homework and exams. When I was in school, I rarely got repeated questions. Most questions challenged my understanding of fundamentals. It's hard to believe that people who only cram can ever get decent grades in tests like IIT's JEE, China's National Entrance Exam, or Japan's university entrance exams, or Korea's national entrance exams. As for the US, it's hard to imagine that anyone can solve decently hard problems in textbooks like Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics or Cormen et el's Introduction to Algorithms (The US does not mandate challenging problems in high schools, so I use examples from college).
thrown_22 4y ago
Teach them about red stone and you're teaming them programming.

deleted 4y ago

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fiftyfifty 4y ago

I just don't think I can agree with Gatto's main premise that schools aren't educating students or that a formal education serves no purpose in the modern world. We have seen world wide that schools are THE most effective tool for lifting people out of poverty. We also see that the countries with the best schools are dominating the world economy. There are also plenty of counter examples we can find: entire countries without well organized compulsory education systems that have incredibly high rates of illiteracy and poverty. Here we are 25 years after Gatto gave this speech, our society has not "disintegrated" yet, Well-schooled people are far from irrelevant, in fact they have given us nearly every single modern comfort and technological breakthrough in modern history and they have continued to do so over the last 25 years. What Gatto is proposing would just create even more inequality and social injustice, where only parents with the means to see their children get a good education can do so, either by having the background and time to homeschool or the money to provide private schooling or tutors for their own children.

hitpointdrew 4y ago
> We have seen world wide that schools are THE most effective tool for lifting people out of poverty. This is false. Schooling has had nothing to do with it, capitalism is what has lifted the most people out of poverty, not schooling.
- bjornsing 4y ago
  Isn’t basic schooling a prerequisite for successful capitalism though? (May sound snarky but a genuine question.)
  - hitpointdrew 4y ago
    This is a fair question. I would argue no. As the article alludes, schooling in general hinders/squishes the entrepreneurial (independent) spirits and instills a risk aversion behavior not conducive to starting a business. There an impressive list of billionaires that either dropped out of college, or didn't even attend (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Walt Disney, Debbi Fields, Mary Kay Ash, and Wayne Huizenga, just to name a few).

Test0129 4y ago

I have nothing of value to add to this. This speech encapsulates my experience in school growing up America and my experience now watching the children in my family grow up. It sums up the cause and effect of all of it exactly as I had supposed and hearing it from a person with actual authority makes it all the more meaningful. Schools, especially K-12, have always felt like a prison and this author put it in a way I couldn't even begin to write. More people should read this. It may be the most important document on the state of the American education system in it's history and it's a full 3 decades old.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

Off topic but why are there so many fairly fresh accounts posting hot takes that reach high on the front page lately?

cm_silva 4y ago
I just happened to find this article today. It was well written and resonated with my experiences and what I found school to be, as a child growing up. I thought it was a good submission for HN.

tempie_deleteme 4y ago

because they teach. the difference being drawing (evoking, pulling) something already there out of the student (education). versus putting some knowledge from the outside inside of the student (teaching).

rgrieselhuber 4y ago

The Ultimate History Lesson: A Weekend with John Taylor Gatto [1] is a (long) revealing look into the history of education in the United States. I don't agree with everything but certainly had my assumptions challenged. As more families choose to eschew government schools, it's hard to argue that he was not ahead of his time with his observations. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQiW_l848t8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQiW_l848t8

RankingMember 4y ago

> My children watch fifty-five hours of television a week, according to recent reports. Would love to have been able to see a source on that whopper- even in the days before most had computers, I don't see any reporting showing ~8 hours a day of consumption for children.

jppope 4y ago
quick google search: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/when-did-tv-watching-peak/561464/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/when-... I know that the US census had the average at like 6 hrs a day. No matter what the real number is... its a lot
- RankingMember 4y ago
  Yeah I saw that but those numbers are by household, not children-specific. ~8 hours is a lot to claim for an average child (even in 1990) and I wasn't able to find anything backing it up.

hintymad 4y ago

> "just let the kids learn by themselves" This has been the central theme of progressive education movement in the US. IIRC, Jo Boaler has been advocating that kids could discover most of the maths by exploring and learning by themselves. I fundamentally disagree with this belief, though. It took thousands of years for our greatest minds to simplify our maths to its current incarnation. Discovering "everything" by myself wastes my time and reduces my chance of working on something more meaningful.

nus07 4y ago
Totally agree. Which countries are dominating STEM education? Israel, Russia, China , India and a few others which have strict schedules, competition and discipline. Looking at the failing US model I am starting to believe that finding your path and self motivation may work for 5% while leading the other 95% to slacking , cheap entertainment and failure.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Discipline is dead here (US). Very few people have discipline as adults, so the kids don't learn it either. Society doesn't value it, so it generally doest pay off. I used to show up early to work, took my responsibilities seriously, and not take shortcuts. Guess what? I get paid the same either way, so what's the point? We're "fat and happy", so something would have to change culturally.
  - fineIllregister 4y ago
    > I used to show up early to work, took my responsibilities seriously, and not take shortcuts. Guess what? I get paid the same either way, so what's the point? What do you imagine happens in Israel, Russia, India, or China when people do that? They get profit sharing? Seems unlikely.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      "What do you imagine happens in Israel, Russia, India, or China when people do that?" They don't get fired, maybe get a raise or promotion. In the US, you won't get fired for doing the minimum because they don't have anyone to replace you with who would be better.

giantg2 4y ago

There seem to be some good points in here. I'm not sure I agree with all of them, but the conclusion that family is important to learning seems to be true in my experience. Many parents get so hung up on the "best" schools they ignore their own possible contributions. Eg work 50-80 hours a week, never teach their kids anything, and complain when the school or after school activity is doing something "wrong" because their kid isn't a star. Unfortunately home schooling isn't an option for most, even if it is possibly one of the best options within the current system (atleast education wise, not for the conformity). "Our teenage-suicide rate is the highest in the world — and suicidal kids are rich kids for the most part, not poor. In Manhattan, 70 percent of all new marriages last less than five years." These are very interesting and maybe I'll do some more research on these.

emeth 4y ago

From the article: > But I am confident that as they gain self-knowledge, they’ll also become self-teachers — and only self-teaching has any lasting value. Makes me think of Dorothy Sayer's 1948 article, The Lost Tools of Learning [0]. [0]: https://www.pccs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/LostToolsOfLearning-DorothySayers.pdf https://www.pccs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/LostToolsOfL...

dieselgate 4y ago

This is a really well written article though I’m mixed in my agreements with it. Thought it was funny they mentioned the author “growing garlic” in the forward. It’s also curious to read about literacy rates before/after “compulsory” education and how they seemingly dropped - is this potentially because of different “standards” in defining literacy? I feel everything I’ve ever learned was “taught to myself” even though I’ve spent close to two decades in school. Of course a teacher can catalyze the process by presenting material in an organized way. They say “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” and at first this seemed like an appropriate analogy for learning - but after some reflection is only partly relevant. Peer groups can be beneficial with catalyzing learning as well - of course it depends on the peers. This is a big topic but found it refreshing to be exposed to some novel (and old) thoughts

jazzyjackson 4y ago
> “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” this is an especially apt metaphor for compulsory education, because when a horse is thirsty, it is perfectly capable of finding water on its own
- dieselgate 4y ago
  I agree with you and thanks for bringing it up. My reasoning for only "partially" applying the metaphor is classrooms are often at least a couple dozen students and potentially if "a few horses or more are drinking" others might follow their lead.

HereIGoAgain 4y ago

The problem is that schools, especially in the west, have totally lost the plot! We need to get back to its original and sole purpose. Teaching young people the basic skills needed to work in society. As well as the skills needed to move onto secondary education and vocational training. The fact that so much time and effort is spent on things other than core subjects, even while we graduate children who fail at one or more of said subjects, is inexcusable. It also makes efforts to push things like political/social activism and issues onto children, all the more infuriating! (not to mention the real harm and derangement doing so causes to children and young people's mental health)

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
Could you expand on what you believe are "core" subjects?
- HereIGoAgain 4y ago
  Reading, writing, MATH, basic science, basic computer literacy and true more generalized home economics/shop type stuff. (basically from understanding bills and legal stuff to basic repair etc) Stuff needed to actually live in society and the tools to START more advanced educational or vocational endeavors. Other stuff should come second, if it all in a mandatory school system.

pneumatic1 4y ago

There’s a book called Dumbing Us Down that is a collection of his essays. I liked it. I’m glad I read it after I finished school and before my kids start.

diffxx 4y ago

For anyone interested in the arguments in this piece, Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich is highly recommended.

hot_gril 4y ago

The author compares American education to other industrialized nations at the start but never brings up those comparisons again. The radical ideas he proposes aren't implemented in other countries AFAIK. What makes the US different?

hot_gril 4y ago

There are things I learned in school and didn't understand their importance for a while. That's fine. But it hurts to see kids learning some things they will never use, or missing more important things. English/reading is way overemphasized, and overly focused on emotional fictional literature. Sorry, I don't give a damn how Juliette feels; maybe I can pretend to care for a year, but 9 years? It didn't matter later in life that I got Bs in English, despite it actually being a useful subject. Maybe this is where the US curriculum differs from other countries the most. Economics should be part of the standard curriculum. Plenty of average people participate in an economy every day without understanding it, other than having street smarts. Math class is seemingly based around the final destination of Calculus AB or BC, but calculus is overly specific if you think about it. Sure, teach the basics, but don't drill the kids for months on solving integrals with trig sub for one. There are so many other math subjects that get ignored. Math proofs are basically nonexistent in high school. Everything is just thrown at you then becomes a game of memorizing algorithms and crunching numbers. I get why so many kids don't like it. History is OK but usually lacks connection to current events.

zozbot234 4y ago
> and overly focused on emotional fictional literature Isn't that what people read for fun? If you have to teach reading and grammar, I'm sure that there are worse choices. And you do need some serious background in Calculus for most college-level STEM fields, including probability/statistics/data science. I do agree that the social sciences (including Econ, but not only!) are seriously missing in school education, and it's quite silly to teach so much history/literature/natural science/math even as we ignore them altogether. Teaching math proofs is really, really hard. Even most college math majors don't really learn them all that well. Maybe if proof assistants develop to the point where it can be a fully "gamified" subject, it could work in K-12.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  > Isn't that what people read for fun? If you have to teach reading and grammar, I'm sure that there are worse choices. My classmates and I always read books for fun, and none of them were the kinds of books in English class. They were more adventurous things like Narnia, Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter, and Ender's Game. Also seemed like the girls could tolerate the English class books a lot better, which felt unfair. Looking back, the only time I enjoyed the books was the one year I had a male English teacher picking them. > And you do need some serious background in Calculus for most college-level STEM fields, including probability/statistics/data science. Sure I remember using calculus in those college fields, but it didn't require what I'd call a serious background in it. Students could just beef up their calculus skills on-demand if needed. I especially never used all that training in solving complicated integrals by hand, which was seemingly half of Calculus BC.

tmaly 4y ago

John Gatto has been on this rant forever. I think even years after this 90s post I could recall him in articles.