Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto

Author:John Taylor Gatto
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: EDU007000
ISBN: 9781550923018
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2002-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

WE NEED LESS SCHOOL,

NOT MORE

“We were making the future,” he said, and hardly any of us troubled to think what future we were making. And here it is!

— The Sleeper Awakes, H. G. Wells

This essay — a personal favorite — was written especially for the first edition, and presented many times as a public speech before the book was published.

I

ASURPRISING NUMBER OF otherwise sensible people find it hard to see why the scope and reach of our formal schooling networks should not be increased (by extending the school day or year, for instance) in order to provide an economical solution to the problems posed by the decay of the American family. One reason for their preference, I think, is that they have trouble understanding the real difference between communities and networks, or even the difference between families and networks.

Because of this confusion they conclude that replacing a bad network with a good one is the right way to go. Since I disagree so strongly with the fundamental premise that networks are workable substitutes for families, and because from anybody’s point of view a lot more school is going to cost a lot more money, I thought I’d tell you why, from a school teacher’s perspective, we shouldn’t be thinking of more school, but of less.

People who admire our school institution usually admire networking in general and have an easy time seeing its positive side, but they overlook its negative aspect: networks, even good ones, drain the vitality from communities and families. They provide mechanical (“by-the-numbers”) solutions to human problems, when a slow, organic process of self-awareness, self-discovery, and cooperation is what is required if any solution is to stick.

Think of the challenge of losing weight. It’s possible to employ mechanical tricks to do this quickly, but I’m told that ninety-five percent of the poor souls who do are only fooling themselves. The weight lost this way doesn’t stay off; it comes back in a short time. Other network solutions are just as temporary: a group of law students may network to pass their college exams, but preparing a brief in private practice is often a solitary, lonely experience.

Aristotle saw, a long time ago, that fully participating in a complex range of human affairs was the only way to be become fully human; in that he differed from Plato. What is gained from consulting a specialist and surrendering all judgment is often more than outweighed by a permanent loss of one’s own volition. This discovery accounts for the curious texture of real communication, where people argue with their doctors, lawyers, and ministers, tell craftsmen what they want instead of accepting what they get, frequently make their own food from scratch instead of buying it in a restaurant or defrosting it, and perform many similar acts of participation. A real community is, of course, a collection of real families who themselves function in this participatory way.

Networks, however, don’t require the whole person, but only a narrow piece. If, on the other

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