Your thoughts?
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I bought his book on the underground history of education in America. Amazing book.
I am so sorry to hear this.
He definitely informed my homeschooling years.
R.I.P.
Anyone who cares about education in America simply MUST read things that Gatto wrote. I particularly recommend The Underground History of American Education.
There is a pdf version on-line. I much prefer the printed bound volume. But you can get a sense of the book by reading almost any part. I suggest starting with the Eyeless in Gaza chapter.
I emailed Gatto with a question about something he wrote. (I no longer remember what it was.) He called me on the phone and we talked for a half hour or more about my question and other things too. What an honor for me.
ML/NJ
A real teacher. I suspect he would score as an NF.
Once in California, a Myers-Briggs survey of public school teachers indicated that almost 2/3 were Sensing-Judging [SJ], while almost 1/3 were iNtuitive-Feeling [NF], with a smattering of SPs (P.E., Shop and the like), and NTs (Science, Engineering, higher education).
Both SJs and NFs were disproportionately represented, especially the NFs, who are heavily outnumbered in the general population.
The other significant finding was that although SJs had a 2:1 edge in numbers, almost all excellence-in-teaching awards went to NFs.
NFs seek to build rapport, and tend to view each student as an individual. SJs tend to focus on rules and rote, and to treat all students as interchangeable.
I considered same-age schooling highly artificial, even as a boy. The old prairie-school mixed class I saw in movies seemed much more natural.
I belonged with older kids, but was not put ahead because I was small and shy, even though I was ahead of everyone else in mathematics and language.
Mixed aging would teach the older ones responsibility toward the younger, and teach the younger to accept guidance from the older. Each student would have his turn at both roles, as their aging progressed.
RIP. I had a few long, wonderful conversations with him. He changed a lot of perspective for me. He did us all a great service. I still see the horrors of institutional education and am still skulking around its edges while soaking up some of its benefits for good reason. After homeschooling for many years, it’s about time I get some of my tax bennies.
Wow, have heard of him. He sounds like he was amazing man & I am definitely going to read his books.
Which of his books should I read first? And thank you for this.
ping;later read
RIP, John Gatto.
He was a pioneer. I agreed with him and saw firsthand how his advice really does work.
I cannot say that I was able to put all his advice into practice in our homeschool, unfortunately, but I strived to.
It's unlikely we'll see Mr. Gatto's obituary in the New York Times, but if we did you can be sure they'd solicit input from teachers' union officials and big-government politicians to make it "balanced."
I'm too old to home-school and the kids are grown, but if this article (first published in Harper's fifteen years ago) had been written thirty years before, it would have lit a fire under me and probably a few million other parents with similar misgivings about what was going on in the public schools our children were forced to attend:
Against School by John Taylor Gatto
It's never too late to free another generation of kids from that 12-year term in government schools. We've lost two of the most prominent advocates in the last decade (Marshall Fritz being the first) but I'm optimistic their work will be carried on by others. Conditions are ripe for a massive exodus from government-run schools.
Oh John Gatto was the best ever. Once at a homeschool convention here in California, he needed to get to a copy shop and I gave him a lift. Got to spend a little time with my hs hero. His book just made so much sense. RIP, Mr. Gatto.