The gloves are starting to come off.
I’m currently reading a book called “DUMBING US DOWN : The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling” by John Gatto and I must say it is quite eye opening. I certainly suggest this short read to anyone who is interested in how our behaviors are formed from such an early age. I think it should be mandatory reading for parents and parents-to-be + of course all teachers of any kind (or those who aspire to be teachers).
I don’t believe in human nature. There is no such thing. We are all just products of our environments. The great thing about being a human animal (capable of rational thinking, unlike other animals) is that we can manipulate our environments; we can change; we can get better; we can learn from the past and kick some ass in the future. Anybody alive right now can basically become a doctor within the next 10 years or do pretty much anything. We are only restricted by our finances and in some cases genetics and age. And of course our attitudes and levels of apathy.
I couldn’t help but get up and share these few paragraphs I came across in the first chapter of the book on the part about intellectual dependency ie. how “good” and “successful” kids are the ones who comply and listen to teachers without resistance, leading to a future of conformity, mediocrity & worst of all, intellectual laziness (sometimes known as religious people).
Here is the quote (I use a kindle electronic reading device for non-fiction so I don’t know the exact page):
“Good people wait for an expert to tell them what to do. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that our entire economy depends upon this lesson being learned. Think of what might fall apart if children weren’t trained to be dependent: the social services could hardly survive — they would vanish, I think, into the recent historical limbo out of which they arose. Counselors and therapists would look on in horror as the supply of psychic invalids vanished. Commercial entertainment of all sorts, including television, would wither as people learned again how to make their own fun. Restaurants, the prepared food industry, and a whole host of other assorted food services would be drastically down-sized if people returned to making their own meals rather than depending on strangers to plant, pick, chop, and cook for them. Much of modern law, medicine, and engineering would go too, as well as the clothing business and schoolteaching, unless a guaranteed supply of helpless people continued to pour out of our schools each year.
Don’t be quick to vote for radical school reform if you want to continue getting a paycheck. We’ve built a way of life that depends on people doing what they are told because they don’t know how to tell themselves what to do.”
Looking forward to continue reading the rest of this finely written book.
POSTED IN SOCIETY TAGGED BOOK REVIEW, CHILDREN, DUMBING US DOWN, EDUCATION, HUMAN NATURE, JOHN GATTO, SCHOOL SYSTEM, SCHOOLING