Aaron Jagt
3/31/09
www.dollarhomeschool.com

 Mr. Gatto and the Public School Environment 

Homeschoolers may sometimes be questioned about why it is that they homeschool; what is so terrible about the public schools? And how will your children be able to function in society, without the practice dealing with people that a public school environment provides? 

So we should ask ourselves: what is this public school environment that we are afraid of? 

Lets list some of the points of this environment.Children are under continual surveillance, guarded by low paid employees of the state. Bad behavior is punished with increased time. For every activity permission must be requested, yard time is granted once a day with good behavior. If children do not meet their quota of work, a letter is sent to their parole officer/parents. Etc. Remind you of any place? 

Perhaps you may think comparing a school to a prison is too extreme. But what are prisons today? The prison system isn't just a punishment anymore, it is a means of curing an unbalanced person, to allow those who have not properly adapted to their roles in society to be 'rehabilitated'. Now think about that word: rehabilitated. In order for a person to be rehabilitated, at some point they must have first been habilitated, correct? And that is what a school is, a center of habilitation. So there should be no surprise that it resembles a prison; in fact, it is the prisons which resemble the schools, the school having come first.

The consequences of this enforced and prison-like environment on children are complex and serious. Consider the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Gatto, a teacher in New York City. John Taylor Gatto was named the New York City teacher of the year on three occasions, and his teaching career climaxed in 1991, when he was named the Teacher of the year for the entire New York State. That same year, he ended his teaching career saying that he was no longer willing to hurt children. This is a condensed version of his essay on the educational process in public schools:

 “The 7-Lesson Schoolteacher

1. The first lesson I teach is confusion. Everything I teach is out of context... I teach the unrelating of everything. I teach disconnections.

2. The second lesson I teach is class position... children are numbered so that if any get away they can be returned to the right class.

3. The third lesson I teach is indifference... when the bell rings I insist that they stop whatever it is that we've been working on and proceed quickly to the next work station.

4. The fourth lesson I teach is emotional dependency. By stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors and disgraces I teach children to surrender their will to the predestined chain of command.

5. The fifth lesson I teach is intellectual dependency. It is the most important lesson, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives. Only I the teacher can determine what the children must study, or rather, only the people who pay me can make those decisions which I then enforce.

6. The sixth lesson I teach is provisional self-esteem. The lesson of report cards, grades, and tests is that children should not trust themselves or their parents, but need to rely on the evaluation of certified officials.

7. The seventh lesson I teach is that you can't hide. I teach children they are always watched by keeping each student under constant surveillance along with my colleagues.

It is the great triumph of compulsory, government monopoly, mass-schooling that among even the best of my fellow teachers, and among the best of my student's parents, only a small number can imagine a different way to do things.”*

 Now while some of the conclusions that Mr. Gatto draws in his article can be agreed with and disagreed with on varying levels, the point which is driven home severely is that the public schools do not simply teach children to read write, and do arithmetic. They are being taught to be tame, docile citizens, and to not stray from their places in society.

 It is really not the governments fault that they have built this edifice of indoctrination. The government gives the people what they want. Today, through a false pride, and humanistic pity, people have tried to do something which we cannot do: separate the sin from the sinner. And since we have said that the sinner is not to blame, we say that it is the environment in which he was raised that is the true evildoer. So now we call upon the government to protect us, to regulate and control the environment of each and every person so that there will be no more sin.

 The terrible truth of the matter is; sinful man does not desire freedom. He does not have faith or trust in God, and so he sells his freedom for the one thing he desires above all else: security. Cradle to grave security, where the government will guarantee his life: from government certified school, to government certified college, to government certified job, to government certified retirement. No wonder they call it “Social Security”.

 So, for the homeschooler, the Christian ones at least, the reason for rejecting the Public School system is simple: a trust in God, rather than man.

 * Sources: The complete essay on the 7 lesson curriculum can be found at http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt , other sources were www.johntaylorgatto.com and 'Contemporary Education' From the Easy Chair, RR161DK208 www.chalcedon.edu.