John Taylor Gatto Quotes
Children do not learn in school; they are babysat. It takes maybe 50 hours to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. After that, students can teach themselves. Mainly what school does is to keep the children off the streets and out of the job market.
Gatto, John Taylor. Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling. New Society Publishers, 2009.
Brunner and B. F, Skinner were the two most preeminent learning psychologists of the day. They were intellectual opponents, but both agreed with this principle, Amazing demonstrations of this principle are available throughout history. However, apparently the cost to do it can be huge and as of 2012 there has been no overall success on a large scale of the general proposition. On the other hand, set theory has been taught to Junior High School students well, and calculus is taught in many American high schools. However. while there are these spectacular results, the American education system of the early 21st century has been unable to produce basic arithmetic and algebra skills in over 20 percent of the population.
John Taylor Gatto was an American author and school teacher. After teaching for nearly 30 years he authored several books on modern education, criticizing its ideology, history, and consequences. He is best known for his books Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, and The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling, which is sometimes considered to be his magnum opus.