The Underground History of American Education, Volume I: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling

by John Taylor Gatto

Book Overview

"Crisis in Education from problem to opportunity." This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0998919101
• ISBN13: 9780998919102
• Release Date: May 2017
• Publisher: Valor Academy
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

question

The book put a good deal of my past life into perspective; I had spent years trying to introduce effective teaching methods into schools in several different countries, but with very little success. It is actually very easy to teach someone to speak your language, just as it is easy to train students to high level of mathematical skill in a short space of time (my own mathematics degree at a British University absorbed about 3 hours a week over three years and I found it possible to teach students at a similar rate.) Until I read this book, I was at a loss as to why so many easy and obvious improvements in education were never made. Gatto's explanation is that the purpose of schooling is to impede learning and create a class of unthinking producer-consumers and that the inability of teaching professionals to teach is wilful. While his explanation seems minently plausible - it simply is not possible that the teaching profession can be so useless without some good reason - his references are few and it is difficult to establish how influential the people he holds responsible really were/are. I would like to ask if anyone can suggest other material providing evidence for or against this hypothesis or evaluating the imprtance of those individuals and movements Gatto cites as being active in creating a system which represses learning and retards maturity.

Excellent Documentation Leaves No Room For Conspiracy Theory

When a friend first told me about this book, I thought perhaps Gatto was a conspiracy theorist, but the well-documented tome disabused me of that idea within the first few pages. I cited this book several times in the writing of my own book, Two Trees of Knowledge: A Biblical Case for the Separation of School and State. I have to admit, it all sounds like a conspiracy theory, but the fact of the matter is that the people in control of government education have been writing about this stuff for over a hundred years--it's just that parents are not paying attention. Parents are more concerned about meeting the nice teacher in the classroom. (Actually, they spend more time checking out their kids' babysitters than the teachers who are with them 35-plus hours a week.) The fact that the schools are right in our neighborhoods gives an added sense of security--they seem as safe as our own backyard. And we know all the other kids--these things lull us into accepting something that is far from safe. One thing that should be stressed is that compulsory education laws differ in every state. Keeping kids home for a few extra years makes a world of difference in the damage the school can do. For one thing, children who start school between the ages of 8 and 10, are far less likely to fall into the trap of peer bonding and peer dependency. They already have a sense of self-confidence that renders them far less needy. For another thing, even without any formal schooling, children who start at age 10 are very likely to surpass their peers by eighth grade. I wish that Gatto had emphasized that people do not have to send their kids to school at age five. Most people I speak to have no idea that they can keep their kids home a few years without penalty. The schools do everything they can to convince people that if they start their children later, they will fall behind. (Look at the names of some educational programs: Headstart, No Child Left Behind.) Just the opposite is true--kids fall behind if they start too early. I would highly recommend that people who are serious about this read Better Late Than Early: A New Approach to Your Child's Education or School Can Wait. These books show the results of over 7,000 studies on 80,000 children over a ten-year period. For anyone who wants an accurate historical account of the history of public education, Gatto's book is invaluable.

Underground History of American Education

This book is on my all-time top 10 list. While it is well worth the price, it is also available in its entirety online, at www.johntaylorgatto.com for free. I read it there first, and then purchased it to read again, annotate, and loan to friends. Gatto's books are all excellent, but this one is his opus. I also highly recommend Education: Free and Compulsory by Murray Rothbard. This is also available online, free, at www.mises.org. It was written decades ago, in the 60's I believe, and is amazing in its support of homeschooling, an option essentially unknown at that time. It is much shorter, at about 150 pages, than Underground History and so makes a good starting point. Mises is a generally excellent source for all manner of libertarian writings. They operate an online bookstore, but every item they control the copyright to is also available free online. As a result of these books (and many others also), we have liberated 3 of our children from the tyranny, thought control, and general low standards of our local magnet school. Our 4th is a senior this year. I'm sorry it is too late for him, but we certainly won't be sending him to a public university. My entire experience with now 13 years of public schools can be summed up in four words - I had no idea. I would also suggest that if you have children in public school now, esp high school, have them bring home all their text books and look over them closely. You may be surprised to see the PC content of the texts, not just the obvious history, government, and economics books but also English (we have an English grammar book, but we don't use it at all - indeed the pages are in pristine condition is spite of being issued to 3 previous students. Also, we don't actually write term papers, even in two years of AP English, although we do make videos. I'm sure our college profs will accept those as well. And we are well up to speed in Oprah Lit.), math (we don't do proofs in Geometry, they aren't tested on the SAT you know) and of course science, the most PC of all (few actual labs, but we do draw posters in the lab as group projects- cooperation is very important, and fully one third of our course syllabus in biology is devoted to evolution, ecology, and global warming - because the debate is over, don't you know). Let me emphasize that this is the only magnet academic high school in the city, not just an average public school. My son is a National Merit Finalist this year, one of 22 in his class. This school consistently has more Finalists than any other school in TN - they are very good at test prep, leaving the impression that they are teaching something worth knowing. I didn't know before, but now I do, and you will too if you read Gatto's book.

Highly Academic Look at the History of Schools, Important Book

Gatto, a school teacher for almost 30 years, wonders how or why he spent a large portion of his life as a teacher. He goes into extreme detail, exploring the history of education, especially focusing on the 1800's and early 1900's. The theme repeated over, and over, and over again is simple: That our "modern" educational system, not just in the U.S. but England and Europe as well, has one design, and one purpose. To make children stupid. To make children into a lower working class who believe in material objects, who cannot think for themselves, and who follow orders. Gatto carefully tracks from many angles how the structure of school was set up, so that the teachers, and the parents HAVE NO POWER over what the government says or does to their children. He also documents how much smarter children are who are not schooled, citing amazing abilities. With clear quotes and extremely thorough research he proves without a shadow of a doubt, that school is designed to make our children into dumb and lifeless objects by promoting fake dependence and thwarting natural development. This book is very dense and detailed, so be prepared for that. Review is by Ramiel Nagel author of Healing Our Children: Because Your New Baby Matters! Sacred Wisdom for Preconception, Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting (ages 0-6) & Cure Tooth Decay: Heal and Prevent Cavities with Nutrition (First Edition).

The Truth

John Taylor Gatto is a former New York public schoolteacher who taught for thirty years and won multiple awards for his teaching. However, constant harassment by unhelpful administrations plus his own frustrations with what he came to realize were the inherent systemic deficiencies of our `public' schools led him to resign; he now is a school-choice activist who writes and speaks against our compulsory, government-run school system. THE UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION is a freewheeling investigation into the real - as opposed to the `official' - history of schooling, focused on the U.S. but with examinations of other historical examples for the purposes of comparing and contrasting, as well as for tracing where ideas and concepts related to education originated. You will discover things you were never told in the official version, things that will, at times, surprise, disgust, and scare you. You will also be introduced to the little-known historiography of the the darker side of the construction of compulsory government schooling. In the final analysis, Gatto believes that compulsory, government-run schooling is inherently destructive to true education, the cultivation of self-reliance, and indeed to individualism - which used to be a defining element of the American character. The true purpose of our public school system in reality has more to do with control than it does with learning. This does not mean that rank-and-file teachers, principals, and even superintendents believe they are making students dumber, more conformist, less self-reliant, less capable of genuine analytical, independent thought, and more easily controlled; most people involved in the system no doubt believe that they are trying their best to really teach their students. However, the system itself (which Gatto often characterizes as a complex web) ensures that its real purpose is served, despite the efforts of individual reformers within it - that true democracy is rendered unworkable even as the trappings of democracy are allegedly bolstered. Seen in this light, these institutions that produce barely literate, dependent, conformist, incomplete individuals full of emotional and psychological problems, who lack real knowledge (and whose capacity for acquiring such is deliberately weakened or eliminated), and who are just `educated' enough to pay their taxes and buy the latest products, are not, in fact, failing schools - on the contrary, if we are to believe Gatto's analysis, they are performing their designated function PERFECTLY. That purpose is to mold people in such a way as to make them more easily controlled by corporations and the state (a clear-cut example of how, contrary to popular myth, the interests of big business and those of big government more often than not coincide.) Though the organization of the book is somewhat haphazard, this book is compulsively readable to any critical thinker with an open mind to consider what's REALLY wrong with