Dumbing Us Down

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling [Paperback]

John Gatto (Author) 

 

In the early 1980s my wife and I read this book. I didn't have to go very far because I had experienced this in public school. If it weren't the teachers dumbing us down it was the kids who had fallen through the cracks that got D's and F's in public school and who intimidated and beat up any kids who got A's back in the 1950s and 1960s when I grew up.

 

My favorite concept in the book is: If someone wants to learn something, they will when they are ready, whenever that is.

 

For me, this was a completely revolutionary concept and once I realized this was completely true I realized that like my Logics professor in college that said paraphrased, "Public school in most instances has now become a reform school and babysitting service. Real education mostly doesn't take place in public schools anymore". And unfortunately, because of my own experience in public school, I agree with him. So my position has been since home schooling my own older kids from ages 5 through 12 through an independent study course from Oak Meadow School was to take matters into my own and my wife's hands. I found that it did some amazing things. First, the kids were some of the happiest and most polite kids you ever would want to meet. We set them loose to study pretty much whatever they wanted to learn about. We took field trips to other areas, to other states and even into Canada and India and Nepal and Japan and Thailand at one point. The combination of events resulted in the three of them becoming a nurse, a lawyer, and a fire captain at this point. So setting the kids creative genius loose paid in huge dividends in their lives.

 

However, there is a downside to home schooling. Unless you socialize your children somehow it can cause social problems later. After going through all this(at least with my kids) I realize that maybe putting them back in a private or public school between the ages of 12 to 15 might be wise. For example, one of my younger daughters who is 21 now home schooled almost entirely until she was 14 or 15 and then entered high school as a freshman. But by her Junior year high school bored her so she finished her senior year in a local community college. Then she decided to travel to Norway and then the next year to Guatemala, Belize and Mexico. Now she is getting her English as a second language credential so she can teach English anywhere on earth that she wants to travel to. She decided that she doesn't want to get her Bachelor's degree until she knows what she wants to do. She considers it a waste of her time until she has a career direction of a long term career.

 

Now some of you might worry about her but I don't because everyone loves and adores her because by growing up home schooling she is a very wonderful person and very individualistic and knows exactly who she is. I've met many 40 year olds who don't know themselves as well as she does herself. 

 

So, if you want to be a leader and a self starter, you don't necessarily get that being slammed into a little mental or physical box by a public school teacher and being obedient just like a part in your car for the rest of your life.

 

No. If you don't want to be a victim the rest of your life you have to start by acting the part like you can make decisions and take charge of your life. You need to take control of your life and education and hopefully your parents will help you in this.