The underground history of American education
by John Taylor Gatto, Richard Grove, David Rodriguez, David Ruenzel, Dr. Ron Paul · first published 2003
74% recommend20% neutral6% critical
Why HN recommends it
Well-referenced history arguing that compulsory schooling was built to produce obedient workers and consumers; suits homeschooling parents and anyone questioning the school system. Free to read online.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A former teacher, Gatto left the classroom the same year he was named New York State Teacher of the Year. He announced his decision in a letter to the Wall Street Jounal titled "I Quit, I Think". Using anecdotes gathered from thirty years of teaching, alongside documentation, Gatto presents his view of modern compulsion schooling as opposed to genuine education, describing a "conflict between systems which offer physical safety and certainty at the cost of suppressing free will, and those which offer liberty at the price of constant risk". Gatto argues that educational strategies promote
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…the USA during the late 19th century, due to the necessity of cheap and easily disposable labor. Here are some books to read: John Taylor Gatto: Dumbing Us Down, Weapons of Mass Instruction and The Underground History of American Education. Charlotte Iserbyt: the deliberate dumbing down of america. Ivan Illich: Deschooling Society. John Holt: Anything at all, but particularly How Children Fail and How Children Learn. ---------- Besides…
on “How Does This Not Blow Your Mind?” ↗American schools are doing what they're designed to do--crank out standard units of compliant citizens. Cf "Underground History of American Education" by Gatto. Or see some of PG's rants on the subject.
on “Why Americans Think So Poorly of the Country's Schools” ↗…turns out once you're out of college, most of the rest of your life will be spent with people who aren't your exact age. Homeschooling prepares you for that way better than public schooling. 5) "The Underground History of American Education", by John Taylor Gatto. Just read it. It'll blow your mind, and it's well-supported. TL;DR, our school system was modeled on the Prussian system designed to build an army that could beat Napoleon's…
on “Ask HN: Are you homeschooling your kids? Why?” ↗…measure “ability to regurgitate facts”. It does not help that the mainstream educational paradigm is “to fill the blank slate that is the student”. See: John Taylor Gatto’s book on this subject— The Underground History of American Education. There are other educational paradigms, but they are radically different — no tests, no curriculum, no “fill the blank slate”, no measuring.
on “The availability of text generators will force positive changes to education” ↗Anyone who likes this essay would probably enjoy Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education. It's about the historical forces that shaped the evolution of compulsory schooling it America and in other industrialized countries. The book makes some pretty bold claims. For example, "Ninety-six and…
on “The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher” ↗I heard about The Underground History of American Education here on HN during a discussion about Bill Gates. Someone said they wished Bill were more into Gatto (author of Underground History) than the Knowledge is Power program. I wish I could post this link…
on “The truth about student loans” ↗…international class struggle, and they are afraid that we might discover we can do it for ourselves and toss them (and their tax breaks) over. That is pretty much the theory put forward by John Taylor Gatto in "Underground History of American Education"[1] which is actually a pretty interesting book, even if I am not sure I buy everything he talks about. Oh and unless he faked them, there are too many references from speeches from famous people to…
on “Once a Dynamo, the Tech Sector Is Slow to Hire” ↗…highly associated with religious fundamentalists indoctrinating kids, and further, parents might "mess up" their children's education. This phenomena is thoroughly explored in John Taylor Gatto's book, "Underground History of American Education." In the 1800s, children were taught to read at home. The push towards compulsory education, however, somehow convinced the American public that parents are no longer good enough to teach their kids.…
on “Why volunteering at your kid's school does not make her smarter” ↗…Gatto. Mainstream methods of “training” as you described them, may indeed be the most common method today, but it is by no means the most effective, and Gatto goes into detail about it in his book, _The Underground History of American Education_. For example, an older notion of education is not so much to train people to mechanically repeat results (like you would train people in a factory), but rather, to develop informed and educated citizens…
on “AI breakthrough ChatGPT raises alarm over student cheating” ↗No Contest / Punished by Rewards (Alfie Kohn) The Underground History of American Education (John Taylor Gatto)
on “Ask YC: favorite books” ↗…can probably figure it out on my own. A list of stuff I cite most often: No Contest & Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton PG's essays & ITConversations interviews The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto The Singularity is Near by Kurzweil This graph: http://alexkrupp.com/picture_library/plot.jpg Dee Hock's essay on leadership A handful of blog posts by Mark Cuban All Marketers…
on “Articles, Ideas, Books and/or Concepts that have changed your life” ↗"Such a person will tend be less critical about the value of education than an outsider." Check out John Taylor Gatto's book The Underground History of American Education. C.f. also http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html
on “It's time to study the value of college (rising costs, falling benefits)” ↗…poorly-written rhetoric, but the book is full of damning primary-source material that effectively support the author's points. If you want something less controversial perhaps, look at John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education. It is also available in its entirety online, but to spare you the huge download, I will link to reviews from hacker-friendly sites: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/7/27/215225/986 http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/06/1722203...…
on “'Reading Rainbow' Reaches Its Final Chapter” ↗If you read The Underground History of American Education, an opus of a book compiled over thirty years by John Gatto (former NY and NYC teacher of the year), you will learn that over a hundred years ago, powerful industrialists sought to shape the public educational…
on “Unconscionable Public Education Practices” ↗…designed to 'correct' black culture. This is also what bill gates and Obama are endorsing, incidentally. Anyway if you want to learn more, go read Paul Toughs new book. (But read Punished by Rewards and Underground History of American Education first, because then you'll appreciate why it's fucked up much more.)
on “The End of Men” ↗