[ExI] "Dumbing Us Down" by John Taylor Gatto

SR Ballard sen.otaku at gmail.com
Mon Jul 9 12:39:59 UTC 2018


Perhaps somewhat tangential to many of the things currently discussed
on the list, but has anyone ready the book "Dumbing Us Down" by John
Taylor Gatto?

An overly abbreviated premise of the book is that compulsory K-12
education basically removes humanity from people, destroys the family,
and obliterates all meaningful community. The solution is
homeschooling (?) and/or the radical reduction of structured schooling
to only include "The Three R's" so to speak, after a child shows an
interest in learning them.

Does anyone have any thoughts of this book? As much as Mr. Gatto
claims that schools instill anti-intellectualism in children, his
repeated digs at evolution, and his seeming worship of a horrifically
polluted river he grew up near, combined with his theories that public
schooling is the only reason we need modern medicine, seem to me to be
equally anti-intellectual.

It's a short book which I found while house-sitting for my cousin.
It's the first book in quite a few years which has made me feel
irrationally angry. Perhaps I have just misunderstood some central
argument or opinion which would make the whole thing more tolerable.



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