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John Taylor Gatto

John Taylor Gatto Quotes

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Famous John Taylor Gatto Quotes

“A lot of the strings that hold us like puppets are really inventions of our own minds. I'm not saying that there aren't armies and police and various ways to punish deviants, but there isn't any way to punish a large number of deviants. It's too expensive to even try. So, the solution is to colonize the minds of children as they're growing up, so that they become their own police, and to report on others who are deviating.”

WayTryingMindChildrenNumbersGrowing UpGrowingSolutionsArmyPoliceVariousInventionExpensiveReportsStringsPuppetsLarge NumbersDeviants
Author:John Taylor Gatto
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“If you put fleas in a shallow container they jump out. But if you put a lid on the container for just a short time, they hit the lid trying to escape and learn quickly not to jump so high. They give up their quest for freedom. After the lid is removed, the fleas remain imprisond by their own self policing. So it is with life. Most of us let our own fears or the impositions of others imprison us in a world of low expectations.”

IfsWorldGivingTryingSelfGiving UpLowsExpectationsQuestsShallowShort TimeFleasContainersImpositionLow Expectations
Author:John Taylor Gatto
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“Slowly I began to realize that the bells and the confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all the rest of the national curriculum of schooling were designed exactly as if someone had set out to prevent children from learning how to think and act, to coax them into addiction and dependent behavior.”

IfsThinkingChildrenAgeRealizingCrazyBehaviorConstantAddictionDependentPrivacyBellsSegregationSequenceSurveillanceSchoolingCurriculumConfinement
Book:Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
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“The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions.”

PeopleSchoolOrderIndividualTeachTeacherMysteryTruth IsLogicInstitutionsCaringAbstractContributionHumaneAdministrators
Book:Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
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“It only takes about 50 contact hours to transmit basic literacy and math skills well enough that kids can be self-teachers from then on. The cry for 'basic skills' practice is a smokescreen behind which schools pre-empt the time of children for twelve years and teach them the six lessons I've just taught you.”

YearsWellsChildrenSelfEnoughKidsSchoolHoursBehindsTeachPracticeTeacherCryTaughtLessonsSkillsSixMathContactTwelveLiteracyTransmitMath Skills
Author:John Taylor Gatto
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“I taught public school for 26 years, but I just can't do it anymore. For years I asked the school board to let me teach a curriculum that doesn't hurt kids, but they always had other fish to fry. If you hear of a job where I don't have to hurt kids to make a living, let me know. The truth is that schools don't really teach anything, but blind obedience.”

IfsKnowsYearsKidsSchoolJobsHurtTeachTaughtTruth IsLet MeBlindFishesObedienceBoardsPublic SchoolCurriculumSchool BoardBlind Obedience
Author:John Taylor Gatto
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“Although teachers do care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic-it has no conscience. It rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to a different cell where he must memorize that humans and monkeys derive from a common ancestor.”

MenWritingHumansDifferentHardCareMovingYoungCommonTeacherMiddleConscienceInstitutionsRingsCellsYoung ManAncestorBellsMonkeysNotebookPsychopathic
Book:Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
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“Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important or worth finishing; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly.”

WayHumansChildrenImportantKidsCommunityChanceClassTaughtHabitHundredOrganizationShameScalesInvisibleAssociationIsolatedBellsRetreatCagesRidiculeHornsFinishingLarge Scale
Book:Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
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“Individuality, family, and community are, by definition, expressions of singular organization, never of "one-right-way" thinking on the grand scale. Children and families need some relief from government surveillance and intimidation if original expressions belonging to THEM are to develop. Without these freedom has no meaning.”

IfsThinkingWayNeedsChildrenGovernmentCommunityExpressionOrganizationOriginalsIndividualityDefinitionsScalesReliefBelongingRight WaySurveillanceIntimidationGovernment Surveillance
Author:John Taylor Gatto
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“I don’t think we’ll get rid of schools any time soon, certainly not in my lifetime, but if we’re going to change what’s rapidly becoming a disaster of ignorance, we need to realize that the institution “schools” very well, but it does not “educate”; that’s inherent in the design of the thing. It’s not the fault of bad teachers or too little money spent. It’s just impossible for education and schooling to be the same thing.”

IfsThinkingNeedsWellsLittlesDoeSchoolRealizingTeacherImpossibleDesignIgnoranceBecomingInstitutionsFaultsLifetimeDisasterEducateInherentSchoolingLittle MoneyBad Teacher
Book:Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
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“Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges. It should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important, how to live and how to die.”

ShouldPersonsImportantBigsSpiritValuesDiesIndividualChallengesTeachLearningRichUniqueOriginalsMapsConformistWherever You AreBig ChallengesRoad MapsUnique Individuals
Book:Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
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“The shocking possibility that dumb people don't exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my central proposition: the mass dumbness which justifies official schooling first had to be dreamed of; it isn't real.”

PeopleFirstsRealSeemsGovernmentSchoolNumbersCareersMillionsPossibilityMassIncrediblesDumbSufficientOfficialsJustifyDevotedPropositionsShockingSchoolingWarrantsSchools And EducationDumb PeopleDumbness
Author:John Taylor Gatto
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“Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest.”

IfsNeedsWritingYearsMeanSchoolReadingForceBehindsEducationClassMillionsFiveTeacherWeekMonthsSixNineHidingRoutineTwelveJustificationSchoolingArithmeticHomeschoolingBanalityNine MonthsRationaleReading Writing
Author:John Taylor Gatto
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