[headline] Book: Dumbing Us Down [/headline]
Author: John Taylor Gatto
Length: 106 pages
Published by: New Society Publishers
Year of Publication: 2005
Paperback ISBN: 0-86571-448-7
In 1975 Gatto’s most read first work of Monarch notes guide to Ken Kesey’s: One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest, was published. Kesey’s novel is the story of a rebel—Randall Pack McMurphy—who happened to be in the state psychiatric institution in the 1960s. Once within he found himself in the strict rules, tight routines, schedules, violence and repression that were ironically ‘for patient’s own good’. McMurphy tried to find out the force behind it—the Combine, which controls the fate of each patient in her hands.
He describes the Combine that controls this world “as powerful, brain destroying association of technocrats, intent on building a world of precision, efficiency and tidiness… a place is where schedule is unbreakable.” Gatto argues that within this world, “words are meaningless routines insulate people from life itself, blind them to what is happening around them, and deaden the moral faculties.” Gatto further reveals from Kesey’s novel “is the most important revelation that the patients of the asylum are not committed but are there of their own free will.” And they are controlled, ultimately, is through guilt, shame, fear and belittlement.
The above description, If you have not already seen the analogy, is directly associated with the “compulsory schooling” in our era. Gatto reveals for us that this is a relatively latest phenomenon—an invention of the State of Massachusetts around 1850, sometimes resisted with guns and in Barnstable on Cape Cod was seized by militia and children marched to school under guard.
Gatto severely criticizes the present schools as the ‘scientific management of a mass population, intended to produce formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled.’ Gatto fiercely shake the very bases of schools and its system and raises questions, points out the absurdity of the system that compels us to sit in confinement (classes) with people of exactly the same age and social class actually deprives us off the immense diversity of life around us.
He does not strand us in bewilderment but provides us a solution close to nature that is occupation in real work, real adventures, true mentors who teaches you what you really want to learn. The home schooling – the way it has been since the beginning, the most natural way of learning.
‘The seven lesson school teacher’ was his speech given on the occasion Gatto named “New York State Teacher of the Year” for 1991. They are: Confusion, Class position, Indifference, Emotional dependence, Intellectual dependency, Provisional self-esteem, One can’t hide.
In confusion, he explains how everything taught and practiced in schools in fragments, with no relation to each other. Class position is the second lesson Gatto describes students must stay in the class where they belong, number is a deciding factor. There is no way out of your class except by number magic. Third lesson is Indifference, whatever they are doing in the class no matter how much they are involved in it, they drop it and prepare for the next class—the lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing. Fourth lesson is Emotional Dependency is surrendering their free will to the chain of command—red checks, smiles, frowns, prizes and disgrace are the tools. The fifth lesson Gatto points out is Intellectual Dependency in other words is the name of compliance and dependant behavior: Good students wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. The sixth lesson is the provisional self esteem means evaluation of certified officials should be relied on rather than trust themselves or their parents. The seventh lesson is One can’t hide that they are always watched, under constant surveillance—in other words showing great mistrust and no private time for themselves.
This book is considered to be his magnum opus though some people criticize his work as hyperbolic and one sided, such as Wade A. Carpenter, but not inaccurate. It is highly recommended for all those who have had the slightest interest in education.
By Raja Owaisullah
Academic Coordinator
Hira Foundation School
