Escape From the Institutional Straitjacket, Part 1
New York City Teacher of the Year Turns Against the System
John Taylor Gatto received the New York State Teacher of the Year award in 1990 and was named New York City Teacher of the Year in 1991. When the appointed evening arrived, Mr. Gatto appeared in the hotel ballroom before an audience of well-fed administrators and principals, and delivered his acceptance speech.
It was that night that he publicly turned on them like a mongrel dog.
“The only reason I received this award ” the only reason I’ve been a great teacher for my students ” is because I didn’t do a single thing you told me to. I ignored your ‘standards,’ I thwarted your bureaucracy and I taught unauthorized material. I filled out those forms that said the students were in their desks, when they were really taking horizon-expanding study trips. I had them read real books instead of those inane, dumbed-down textbooks of yours, I taught them real history instead of the porridge of revisionist pabulum you call ‘social studies’.
“Your bureaucracy is a mill that grinds up human beings and turns them into consumer fertilizer for a planned economy. Human potential erodes as hungry minds sit in listless boredom, and teachers operate without the tools they need, just so you guys can fill your administration buildings with cushy jobs and give contracts to your cherished vendors.
“That’s why most of our students can’t read after 12 years of education ” yes, even though it only takes 3 months to learn how to read. That’s why most kids follow the herd into a bleak future instead of thinking for themselves.
“I am officially turning in my resignation as of today.”
Mr. Gatto wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do next, he just knew he could no longer be a part of the rapacious beast that is publicly funded education. Two months later, an article he forgot he’d written was published by the Wall Street Journal and within 24 hours he was on the lecture circuit, speaking to groups ranging from local education conferences to NASA.
I recently finished reading Gatto’s book The Underground History of American Education, a strapping 8″x12,” 400-page text. As big as it is, it’s so fascinating it’s almost impossible to put down. It traces the forces behind compulsory education in America from the mid-1800′s to the present, in all of its hideous complexity. This book was extremely insightful because I myself am an educator of entrepreneurs. I am in the education business.
And because you paid money to read this newsletter, so are you. Today we explore some of the things that business people seem to have a very hard time learning. You are going to undoubtedly relate to this, and this is going to be instrumental in your own business breakthrough.
Is School a Conspiracy?
As my story unfolds ” and as more facts come to light ” you’re going to start to wonder if I think American education is a conspiracy. Let’s answer that question right here and now.
Is American Education a conspiracy to dumb people down and produce obedient drones for an industrial economy?
I answer that question in the next installment.
(This originally appeared in the Perry Marshall Monthly Marketing Newsletter and Renaissance Club, June 2004)
just a note to say exploring your site has been an education in its self
Perry,
I first read this post back in 2004. I knew it was profound but my eyes had not yet been opened to the manufactured Theme Park we call America. A brilliant summary which I have read many times over the years!
My self-education and mind un-programming journey began with Dr. John McDougall (lifestyle medicine vs. sick care), then John Taylor Gatto (education vs. schooling), then John Caldwell Holt (learning vs. coercion) and Jon Young (nature connection vs. disconnection). Four GENIUSES – all of their messages overlapping and all named John/Jon.
The Underground History of American Education is one of my all-time favorite books. It should be noted that John Taylor Gatto read 2,500+ books, conducted 100′s of interviews and worked on it 12 hours/day, 7 days/week, for 10+ years!
It can be read online here:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.htm
If you love this book, you will surely love “Freedom and Beyond” by John Caldwell Holt. Mind-blowing stuff! Freedom in America is a cultural myth. Freedom at it’s core means doing what you want, when you want, how you want, with whom you want, where you want and why you want – as long as you harm nobody else in the process.
Birth – nope. Childhood – nope. School – nope. Cube-town – nope. Using substances put on earth by our creator that are proven to heal but are not taxable (thus not profitable) – nope. Curing cancer naturally (an unprofitable cure already exists and it’s called the immune system) – nope. Opting your children out of toxic poisoning from Chemo (profitable pseudo-science at its best) – nope. Nursing home – nope. Death – nope. If you were really free, you would not fear the police (innocent until proven guilty and protecting you are myths) and the IRS (an unconstitutional collection agency for the privately controlled but never audited Federal Reserve).
The two great evils of our times are school and television. They destroy the minds of our children by disconnecting them from the natural world and replacing with endless abstraction. They teach them that the pinnacle of humanity is being a good but fearful employee and an impulsive consumer – an institutional slave. They tell them what to learn, when to learn it, how to learn it, where to learn it, whom to learn it from and why to learn it. And then we wonder why adults can’t think for themselves?! Um – conservation of energy. Easier to let somebody else do all of your thinking for you!
If one does the research, they will find that the last few hundred years of so-called progress is a myth. We have regressed from full human beings into incomplete and broken human doings and human resources. We have been reduced to mindless parts of a corporate machine.
There are two metaphors we can live by. One is the metaphor of pseudo-science for profit – only a few hundred years old and clearly not working. Modern pseudo-science is driven purely by profit with no regard for human quality of life. Or the metaphor of native cultures – tens of thousands of years old. Native cultures are always practical and pragmatic people – only passing down knowledge (through story – invisible learning) that improved the lives of the next seven generations.
Nearly everybody knows something is grossly wrong with Western culture but everybody is too busy keeping up with the Joneses – working, drinking alcohol, smoking, eating junk food, taking anti-depressants, shopping, watching football and porn – to do anything about it.
Western civilization has been in rapid decline for quite some time and likely won’t exist within 500 years. If you want to see what is really going on in our world and need proof that EVERY single problem we are experiencing today has already occurred in history – check out the work of Carrol Quigley (college advisor to Bill Clinton):
http://www.carrollquigley.net/
And whatever you do – unplug yourself from the corporate controlled 24/7 news cycle which conveniently invents stories, always based in fear, that drive the blind masses to purchase their profitable solutions. Ironically, everyone in the rest of the world is more knowledgeable about what America really stands for than Americans.
Check out the well-kept secret playbook of Madison Avenue Ad Agencies – Propaganda by Edward Bernays. Who is Edward Bernays you ask? Only the Father of Spin and one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. Coincidence that you have never heard of him?
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q2/bernays.html
Being an autodidact is the greatest drug mankind has ever known. Give it a try – today. If you start in the next ten minutes – we will waive all fees. Libraries are standing by. Wake up America!
“You ever watch CNN for longer than, say, 20 hours in one day? I gotta cut that out. Watch CNN. It’s the most depressing thing you’ll ever see, man. “WAR, FAMINE, DEATH, AIDS, HOMELESS, RECESSION, DEPRESSION, WAR, FAMINE, DEATH, AIDS.” Over and over again. Then you look out your window – (crickets chirping) – where’s all this shit going on, man? Ted Turner is making this shit up. Jane Fonda won’t sleep with him, he runs to a typewriter: “By 1992 we will all die of AIDS. Read that on the air. I don’t get laid, nobody gets laid.” ~ Bill Hicks
Congratulations on your exodus from sleepwalking! WIDE AWAKE IN AMERICA. Welcome.
Hi Perry,
This is a very interesting post that offers deep insights on traditional education. Personally, I have been through 15 years of education from kindergarten to tertiary institution in Singapore. And I must say that the only purpose of education is to train your mind and prepare you for a job. Looking back, I can’t even remember how the things that I have studied will be truly applicable in the real world. Schools don’t even teach us how to succeed in life and set goals which are very vital for people who truly want to achieve huge success in life. There is saying that states “Success is Goals!”. And I truly believed in that because human beings are goal chasing machines. Without goals in life, it will be meaningless as we will find ourselves drifting along the crowd and be left behind. And that is what I feel like saying.
Kind Regards,
Edmund Yeo
In the UK where I lived for the last 20 years, education has been wracked by reforms and changes.
The biggest change has been to the curriculum – now it concentrates on the things that can be tested and verified. I was a teacher – well I got as far as getting fully qualified, but events overtook my life. The thing that upset me most was finding myself in charge of a remedial set where two out of the twelve pupils were easily the brightest kids in the school. Their defence was tough and well prepared for all institutional comers. Which included me of course. I wasn’t there long enough to get through, and I doubt if anyone else had any time to care either because the British school teacher is one over-worked animal.
There is an alternative from Germany, the Waldorf schools that form part of their state system (the same goes for the Netherlands). The rules in Germany allow for state schools to have a different curriculum – even one that does not hold with exams. The one thing that struck me in these schools was the fact that the children did not stand in a line to ask the teacher how a word might be spelled, and by the time they start to ask their question they have forgotten what the word was. The Waldorf kids got on with the task in hand and wrote their stories, on and on and on. The spellings were part of the joy of reading them – but the creativity was not arrested by a teacher nosing in and saying “you don’t spell it that way, Charles” Those details can be addressed later when more formal teaching takes place.
Allow the creativity to grow, and you will have no problem with a child’s appetite for learning. Or work for that matter.