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

[William Flynn Wallace]

Ballard wrote: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.
-------
This is outright laughable.  It puts all the motivation on the kids. Think
that will work?  And after having gone through 26 years of education, the
idea that there are a lot more geniuses out there is also ridiculous.  If a
kid is a genius he will find out for himself and go where his mind tells
him to go irrespective of school.

There may be some really good points in the book, which I will not read,
but these two aren't.

bill w

On Mon, Jul 9, 2018 at 7:39 AM, SR Ballard <sen.otaku at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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