Sunday 25 October 2015

John Taylor Gatto is such an interesting thinker on education that I intend to devote two posts to him.
He was an American teacher for 30 years and won 4 awards as 'Teacher of the Year' in New York City and State.
Like John Holt, the more he experienced the world of the modern school, the more he became convinced that the mere construct of school was anti-educational.
He is best known for his classic book Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling.  Wade A. Carpenter, associate professor of education at Berry College, called Gatto's work 'scathing' and 'hyperbolic' but not 'inaccurate'.  Despite his criticism, the professor says that he is in agreement with Gatto.
JTG lectured for years on the benefits of homeschooling, unschooling and open source learning.


I cannot resist supplying a quotation from Gatto's book on dumbing down.  More next week.
I have noticed a fascinating phenomenon in my thirty years of teaching: schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet.  No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes or politicians in civics classes or poets in English classes.  The truth is that schools really don't teach anything except how to obey orders.  This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers do care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic - it has no conscience.  It rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to a different cell where he must memorize that humans and monkeys derive from a common ancestor.

Sunday 18 October 2015

John Holt was one of America's most perceptive teachers and authors on the subject of school and education.  The more he observed children in school, the more he believed that school was actually a hindrance to education.  He wrote his findings in two excellent books, entitled 'How Children Fail' and 'How Children Learn'.  He questioned how an entire system could 'turn a torrent into a trickle' when it came to human potential.
Eventually, he became an advocate for home-schooling, a movement that now includes millions of children in the USA and thousands in the UK.  The issue of home-schooling is a hot one.  Its critics voice two main objections:
 1. It can create unsociable young people.
 2.  It can be used as a means of indoctrinating a child into a political or religious creed.


Of the few cases I have personally known, the children did not become unsociable and all had a circle of friends, most of whom were deeply envious of the home-schooler.
The second objection is a serious one.  I would guess that in some cases, home-inculcation occurs.  But if parents are hell-bent on indoctrinating their child, then they will do so, irrespective of school.
Millions of home-schooled children have done very well, in exams and in life.

I would like to end by quoting a review of Holt's 'How Children Learn'.  It puts into words, better than I could, John Holt's view of 'education':
"Left to themselves, young children are capable of grasping new ideas faster than most adults give them credit for.  But they have their own ways of understanding, of working things out; and in most cases this fresh, natural style of thinking is destroyed when the child goes to school and encounters formal methods of learning".

Sunday 11 October 2015

When I suggested, in my post of 27th September, that I hoped that one day school would be no more, I roused the ire of several friends and commentators.  For that reason, I plan to spend two or three posts on this subject, to explain more fully my statement and to convince some people that I haven't lost my mind.


When I suggest that no school is better than any school, the reaction is either laughter or disbelief, as if I concocted such an idea one night while imbibing a bottle of gin.
There are three teachers/authors I wish to write about, since all three saw clearly how school is the enemy of education.
The first is Ivan Illich, who wrote a brilliant book in the 1960s, entitled Deschooling Society.  He describes how learning can be integrated into society, so that 'school' as we know it would become superfluous.  Illich saw our system of education as deeply anti-educational.  Given enough resources, he believed that children would become much better educated without the hidden curriculum of school. "Universal education through schooling is not feasible", he maintained.  When people reacted to his idea, calling it 'mad', he would reply that sending children into a building to learn what they are not interested in, and yet must obey rules set down by others, is truly mad.


Time is against me today, so I shall leave until next week my post on John Holt and John Taylor Gatto, both worth looking up online.  They were forceful opponents of school.  Such a pity that the powers that be continue to trudge along the same, wrong path, deaf to such wise, experienced voices.

Sunday 4 October 2015

As an English teacher, I frequently emphasised the importance of 'subtext' - which in today's vernacular sounds like a hidden or underwater text message.
Subtext is vital in understanding literature, grasping the real meaning under the surface of the story.
I have found the same applies in life.  What lies behind an action is far more significant than the action itself.  A furious argument between two people can look like contempt and anger, but is really an expression of their interest in each other, if not mutual attraction.


A friend of mine's son, when he was 15 years old, complained to me that his mother was too worried about him all the time.  This used to bother me when I was his age, and I'm sure that it still irritates thousands of adolescents.  It took me quite a while to see that the opposite of concern is neglect.  Kids whose parents couldn't care less what they do, are sending the child a terrible message, one that will reverberate throughout their lives.
In an extreme example of this, a serial killer once said:
"When I was young, nobody cared at all about me, so I grew up not caring about anybody else."
This is not a simplistic excuse for his actions, but is perhaps the beginning of an understanding of why such people exist.
A parent's concern might be annoying and seemingly restrictive to a child, but the subtext of concern is a caring and loving attitude - and that goes for all our close relationships in life.