John Taylor Gatto Quotes

So far, we do not seem appalled at the prospect of exactly the same kind of education being applied to all the school children from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but there is an uneasiness in the air, a realization that the individual is growing less easy to find; an idea, perhaps, of what standardization might become when the units are not machines, but human beings.

When a child is thriving, there is no reason to spend time assessing intelligences. But when a child is NOT thriving - in school or at home - that is the time to apply the lens of multiple intelligences and see whether one can find ways to help the child thrive in different environments.

Its amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools.

What's gotten in the way of education in the United States is a theory of social engineering that says there is ONE RIGHT WAY to proceed with growing up.

We need to have an education system in New Jersey and all over the country that makes all of our kids, either college or career ready. It should be their choice. I mean, every kid doesn't want to go to college. But I think we should aspire to let every child reach his maximum or her maximum potential.

There are amazing teachers, but the system doesn't always allow them to address the individual needs of a child.

We already have so much pressure towards sameness through radio, film and comic outside the school, that we can't afford to do a thing inside that is not toward individual development.

The whole intelectual culture has a filtering system, starts as a child in school. You're expected to accept certain beliefs, styles, behavioral patterns and so on. If you don't accept them, you are called maybe a behavioral problem, or something, and you're weeded out. Something like that goes on all the way through universities and graduate schools. There is an implicit system of filtering, which has the, it creates a strong tendency to impose conformism. Now, it's a tendency, so you do have exceptions, and sometimes the exceptions are quite striking.

For digital natives, public schools are jails

All isolation is wrong so say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd.

The parent must not give in to his desire to try to create the child he would like to have, but rather help the child to develop--in his own good time--to the fullest, into what he wishes to be and can be, in line with his natural endowment and as the consequence of his unique life in history.

we have not yet developed a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination.

I think the best thing to try to do is allow your daughter or your son to know that they can come to you for anything. If you can break down that wall so they don't feel embarrassed by telling you things, that's half the battle.

I pay the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys that educate my son.

Having four kids of my own, fifth one on the way... I think with "Junior," what's happened over the last three years is this program's been implemented across schools.

I want my daughter to be able to go to school and see the diversity of things that her classmates are eating and appreciate that, too. So I'm really excited for her to just kind of sit in and watch me cook and be really hands on and just enjoy cooking.

We want our children to fit in and to stand out. We rarely address the conflict between these goals.

The fact was, by the time she got to high school, being weird and proud of it was an asset. Suddenly cool, Blue could've happily had any number of friends. And she had tried. But the problem with being weird was that everyone else was 'normal'".

Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.

There isn't a right way to become educated; there are as many ways as there are fingerprints.

[On School Uniforms] Don't these schools do enough damage making all these kids think alike, now they have to make them look alike too? It's not a new idea, either. I first saw it in old newsreels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand because the narration was in German.

In my limited experience, shows are like children. You can teach them manners and dress them in little sailor suits, but in the end, they're going to be who they're going to be.

If we attach more importance to what other people believe than to what we know to be true - if we value belonging over being - we will not attain authenticity.

Current education in science treats all students as if they were going to have scientific careers. They are required to solve problems and memorize lists. For many of them, this kills interest very quickly.

We don't go to school to learn, but to be soaked in the prejudices of our class, without which we should be useless and unhappy.