Gatto exposed mandatory education

If you've never heard of John Taylor Gatto, prepare to be shocked.

Gatto is the author of numerous books, including the stunning "Underground History of American Education," and a former public school teacher. His book exposes the primary purpose of American public education, which is not to educate or to create people who know how to think, but instead to create obedient citizens who can work at mindless jobs and follow orders.

In case you'd rather listen than read, here's a YouTube clip of a 30-minute radio interview Gatto did:



Did you know, for example, that since the beginning of mandatory public education in the 1840s, the literacy rate in this country has never been as high as it was before then?

Did you know that President Woodrow Wilson said that only 3 percent of people were worthy of being trained to do independent thinking?

Read Gatto.

Where this all came from was Prussia. In the Napoleonic wars, the Prussians were defeated because many of their soldiers were too independent and not quick enough to follow orders. So the system was changed to create good soldiers, capable of following orders without thinking.

Most of you probably went to public schools. Remember the emphasis? It wasn't on what you learned, it was on how well you followed the rules.

I have a young nephew who has an extremely high IQ. When I was talking with his father about Gatto a couple of years ago, we called his son -- 7 at the time -- over to ask him a simple question. I asked him which was more important to his teachers -- getting the right answers or following the rules.

"Following the rules," he said without hesitation.

Remember back to when you were in school. Which kids had the most problems getting along? Aside from the total misfits, it was usually the ones who kept asking "Why do we do it this way?"

In this country, it was all about the industrial revolution. In an 1859 speech, Abraham Lincoln pointed out one of the strengths of America. Nearly 75 percent of working people were their own bosses, either as farmers, small businessmen or artisans. They didn't take orders from anyone. They were independent thinkers.

The industrial revolution changed all that. Companies wanted workers who would follow orders without question, who were essentially interchangeable cogs in a big machine. They didn't want people who would ask questions, unless that question was "How high do you want me to jump, sir?"

Why is so much of education based on rote memorization, on true-false, multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blanks testing? Because it teaches people that there is a right answer to everything, and if you know the right answers, you succeed.

When I was in 12th grade in 1966, I did something I don't think had ever been done at my school. I called a teacher a racist.

It could have been worse, I suppose.

I could have called her a Nazi.

She was German, and this was at the height of the Civil Rights movement. She told an all-white class that the problem with black people was that they didn't want to work and only wanted handouts. I told her that was a racist thing to say.

Of course in the overall scheme of things, I was the one who lost. She spent the rest of the year getting back at me.

Kids just weren't supposed to talk to teachers that way.

So listen to the interview. Read Gatto's book, or at least part of it. The link given earlier is to a PDF version of it online.

I guarantee it will shock you.

It certainly shocked me.