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John Taylor Gatto

John Taylor Gatto Quotes

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John Taylor Gatto is an American author known for his critical analysis of the educational system. Born on December 15, 1935, he is a former public school teacher who gained national attention for refusing to comply with bureaucratic regulations in education. Gatto's work emphasizes the importance of educational freedom and personal responsibility.

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Famous John Taylor Gatto Quotes

“I assign a type of extended schooling called “homework,” so that the effect of surveillance, if not the surveillance itself, travels into private households, where students might otherwise use free time to learn something unauthorized from a father or mother, by exploration or by apprenticing to some wise person in the neighborhood.”

School Education Learning Discourse Critique

Book:Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

“The natural solution to learning to live together in a community is first to learn to live apart as individuals and as families. Only when you feel good about yourself can you feel good about others.”

Learning Know Oneself Live Together

Book:Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

“Genius is an exceedingly common human quality, probably natural to most of us.”

Inspirational Humans Natural Common Quality Learning Students Genius Educational Human Qualities

Book:Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

“I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”

“The old system where every child was locked away and set into nonstop, daily cut throat competition with every other child for silly prizes called grades is broken beyond repair. If it could be fixed it could have been fixed by now. Good riddance.”

Ifs Children Has Beens Learning Cutting Broken Competition Silly Fixed Grades Prize Throat Locked Could Have Been Riddance Good Riddance

Author:John Taylor Gatto

“School presents daily exercises in dis-association. It forces unwelcome associations on most of its prisoners. It sets petty, meaningless competitions in motion on a daily basis, pitting potential associates against one another in contests for praise and other worthless prizes.”

School Force Learning Exercise Bases Praise Competition Prize Prisoner Meaningless Association Associates Contests Worthless Petty Unwelcome Daily Exercise

Author:John Taylor Gatto

“It was never factually true that young people learn to read or do arithmetic primarily by being taught these things. These things are learned, but not really taught at all. Over-teaching interferes with learning, although the few who survive it may well come to imagine it was by an act of teaching.”

People Wells May Young Learning Imagine Teaching Taught Interfere Arithmetic

Author:John Taylor Gatto

“Creative work and critical thought, which produces new knowledge, can't be conditioned; indeed, conditioning prevents these things from ever happening.”

Creative Learning Produce Happenings Critical Conditioning Creative Work Unschooling New Knowledge

Author:John Taylor Gatto

“One of the first things a family tries to teach its children is the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. One of the first things our schools do is destroy that distinction.”

Trying Firsts Children School Evil Differences Teach Learning Distinction Good And Evil

Author:John Taylor Gatto

“It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to listen to a stranger reading poetry when you want to learn to construct buildings, or to sit with a stranger discussing the construction of buildings when you want to read poetry.”

“School is about learning to wait your turn, however long it takes to come, if ever. And how to submit with a show of enthusiasm to the judgment of strangers, even if they are wrong, even if your enthusiasm is phony.”

Ifs Long Shows School Turns Waiting Learning Judgment Stranger Enthusiasm Submit Phony Unschooling

Author:John Taylor Gatto

“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.”

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

“You either learn your way towards writing your own script in life, or you unwittingly become an actor in someone else's script.”

Way Life Writing Choices Actors Acting Learning Scripts Life Learning

Book:Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling