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An Enclosure Movement For Children (public schools)
The Oddyseus Group ^ | John Taylor Gatto

Posted on 09/14/2006 8:00:51 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued

The secret of American schooling is that it doesn’t teach the way children learn, and it isn’t supposed to; school was engineered to serve a concealed command economy and a deliberately re-stratified social order. It wasn’t made for the benefit of kids and families as those individuals and institutions would define their own needs. School is the first impression children get of organized society; like most first impressions, it is the lasting one. Life according to school is dull and stupid, only consumption promises relief: Coke, Big Macs, fashion jeans, that’s where real meaning is found, that is the classroom’s lesson, however indirectly delivered.

The decisive dynamics which make forced schooling poisonous to healthy human development aren’t hard to spot. Work in classrooms isn’t significant work; it fails to satisfy real needs pressing on the individual; it doesn’t answer real questions experience raises in the young mind; it doesn’t contribute to solving any problem encountered in actual life. The net effect of making all schoolwork external to individual longings, experiences, questions, and problems is to render the victim listless. This phenomenon has been well-understood at least since the time of the British enclosure movement which forced small farmers off their land into factory work. Growth and mastery come only to those who vigorously self-direct. Initiating, creating, doing, reflecting, freely associating, enjoying privacy—these are precisely what the structures of schooling are set up to prevent, on one pretext or another.

(Excerpt) Read more at johntaylorgatto.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: corporate; culturewars; education; educrats; pubicschools; publicschool; publikskoolz; schools; slavery
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To: wintertime
At 15, he could have DONE that job, and performed well!

I hired my best employee when she was 18 and not out of high school yet. She decided she wanted to be homeschooled when she got to high school to avoid the social distractions.

While she's a little immature sometimes, she learns faster and works smarter than practically anyone else at the business. I'm lucky to have her.
41 posted on 09/15/2006 8:01:31 AM PDT by Shion (Jaded Southern Californian)
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To: linda_22003

After graduating high school at age 18 today, the students go on to a four-year college. Age 22 is correct. Age 23 if they're in a five-year program like a cooperative or an internship program.

Today, in most school districts, there's a very early birthday deadline that holds kids back a grade. In my district, a child cannot start Preschool unless he turns four by Oct. 1.

Both my oldest child and I have November birthdays. When I was a kid, I was allowed to start Kindergarten at age four turning five. He wouldn't have been allowed to start until he was five turning six. So, I graduated high school at age 17; he would graduate at age 18 if he were in school.

I have another child who misses the deadline by only nine days. And the school is strict about that deadline, too. Even if the school were more flexible, most parents adhere to the deadline, so your kid would be the youngest in his class. Maybe he can do the work, but will he socialize well with the older kids?

In some districts, they're moving the birthday deadline back into August!


42 posted on 09/15/2006 8:26:09 AM PDT by Tired of Taxes (That's taxes, not Texas. I have no beef with TX. NJ has the highest property taxes in the nation.)
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To: Clintonfatigued
I don't know if you can generalize, public school education varies from state to state, and often county to county. Unlike most european nations, we do not have a homogenous population in many states and cities, so teachers are having to use curriculuum that will speak to a host of cultures. Are there issues with public schooling...of course.

Standardizing the curriculuum is also NOT the answer. Offering MORE choices is. We've been lucky enough to have sent both of our kids to very child friendly private schools, my youngest has since left and gone on to public school. And so far we've been very pleased with her progress there as well.

43 posted on 09/15/2006 9:08:17 AM PDT by Katya (Homo Nosce Te Ipsum)
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To: jwh_Denver

One comment he made is "there is no one way th educate a child. The ways in which they learn are as varied as fingerprints."


44 posted on 09/15/2006 9:23:06 AM PDT by Clintonfatigued (illegal aliens commit crimes that Americans won't commit)
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To: Tired of Taxes
"What on earth is "workers' physics" or "Aryan physics"...? "
Well, Einstein's work was [in Germany of 1930's] regarded as "non-Aryan physics". Genetics, primitive as it was at the time, was for a while considered "bourgeois mendelism/morganism" in the Soviet Union of thucking memory. Instead the "proletarian Michurinite theory of heredity" was pushed. Here and now we have creationism in all its flavors. This is what is to be expected when an ideology tries to push itself where it does not belong - one gets PC science.
45 posted on 09/15/2006 9:23:25 AM PDT by GSlob
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To: GSlob
Once upon a time and in a different realm I visited such a school, organized by university professors for their offspring.

Every wonder why you had to frame this as a fairy tale? It's real hard to keep a gifted/talented program going in the public schools. It happens in University towns, or in places where most of the parents are engineers (we have large AT&T, J&J and other research sites close). It happens when parents are smart enough and rich enough to demand something better. Even then, its a continual political fight to keep these programs going.

46 posted on 09/15/2006 9:25:44 AM PDT by slowhandluke (It's hard work to be cynical enough in this age)
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To: wintertime
"I dated a man who was a graduate of the Stuyvesant school in N.Y. It was a dreadful experience for him."
Why then was he dating you if it was dreadful?
47 posted on 09/15/2006 9:30:51 AM PDT by GSlob
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To: Tired of Taxes

I guess that makes sense. I've never memorized that birthday-falls-in-x-part-of the year thing. I also skipped first grade when the teacher discovered I could already read, so I was spared too much time with those goofballs Dick and Jane, and their idiot sister Sally. Since my birthday is in June, I was sixteen when I graduated from high school.


48 posted on 09/15/2006 9:33:37 AM PDT by linda_22003
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To: GSlob

Good catch. No matter where or how we were educated, sentence construction means something.


49 posted on 09/15/2006 9:36:09 AM PDT by linda_22003
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To: fml

Are you feeling guilty?


50 posted on 09/15/2006 10:27:19 AM PDT by wintertime (Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid)
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To: GSlob
Good point, GSlob.
51 posted on 09/15/2006 10:29:12 AM PDT by wintertime (Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid)
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To: wintertime

Your having a silly superior attitude regarding your perception of others children and my pointing out that it was narrow minded would lead you to believe I have guilt feelings - how?


52 posted on 09/15/2006 10:54:51 AM PDT by fml
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To: JamesP81; wintertime
That was the system at the time - originated in the British Navy and transferred to the young American Navy.

Midshipmen were sent to sea typically at 12 but as young as 10 or 11. After two years at sea they could officially be appointed midshipmen. They learned their trade at sea, and when ready could sit the examination for lieutenant.

It was essentially an OJT or apprenticeship program. Seemed to work pretty well -- that's how Lord Nelson started out.

53 posted on 09/15/2006 10:58:02 AM PDT by AnAmericanMother ((Ministrix of Ye Chase, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment)))
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To: GSlob
Public school is bad NOT BECAUSE it is public...

Yes, it is. The entire concept is fatally flawed. It's a bad idea, unless you're a socialist oligarch.

54 posted on 09/15/2006 11:00:57 AM PDT by Oberon (What does it take to make government shrink?)
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To: Clintonfatigued

Bump for future read. He's the best living writer regarding the nature of modern schooling.


55 posted on 09/15/2006 11:01:01 AM PDT by Aquinasfan (When you find "Sola Scriptura" in the Bible, let me know)
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To: wintertime; fml

I would suggest that fml should have added a sarcasm tag at the end to make his/her meaning clear to you.


56 posted on 09/15/2006 11:37:41 AM PDT by linda_22003
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To: fml

haha, but do they know anything? Are they vitally interested in their world ( I mean the one outside their games and TV) Are they able to make change without being told how much to give back?
Who are their heroes?? I know I severely generalized, but the vast majority of them are scary to talk to and find out how little they really know.


57 posted on 09/15/2006 1:50:39 PM PDT by bluejean gal (There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.)
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To: Clintonfatigued

BTTT


58 posted on 09/15/2006 1:52:43 PM PDT by Fiddlstix (Warning! This Is A Subliminal Tagline! Read it at your own risk!(Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: Katya

"Unlike most european nations, we do not have a homogenous population in many states and cities"

And what countries would these be? The days of a Europe with a "homogeneous population" are long ago, assuming that this is in any way relevant. Most EU countries, including UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany have many, many African and Muslim inhabitants.


59 posted on 09/15/2006 2:11:32 PM PDT by achilles2000 (Shouting "fire" in a burning building is doing everyone a favor...whether they like it or not)
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To: Clintonfatigued

Did it take John Taylor Gatto all of the 30 years he taught in public schools (plus however many years he attended as a student) to figure this out, or did he just wait until he was eligible for retirement to "see the truth" and start speaking out?


60 posted on 09/15/2006 2:16:51 PM PDT by Amelia (If we hire them, they will come...)
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