John Taylor Gatto

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Taylor Gatto (born December 15, 1935 in Monongahela , Pennsylvania , † October 25, 2018 in New York City ) was an American teacher , author and speaker.

Life

Gatto was born in the Pittsburgh area in 1935 . In his youth he attended public schools in the Pittsburgh Metro Area , including Swissvale , Monongahela and Uniontown, and a Catholic boarding school in Latrobe . He studied at Cornell University , the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia University and then served in the US Army medical service in Fort Knox , Kentucky and Fort Sam Houston , Texas . After serving in the army, he continued his studies at theCity University of New York , Hunter College , Yeshiva University , University of California and Cornell University. Gatto died in October 2018 at the age of 82.

Services

Gatto worked as a teacher for over 29 years. In 1989, 1990 and 1991 he was named New York City Teacher of the year and in 1991 New York State Teacher of the Year . In 1991 he wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal in which he justified his retirement from school service.

As a result, Gatto gave numerous lectures on education issues across the country and wrote books on the subject. Gatto has received awards from libertarian organizations, including the 1997 Alexis de Tocqueville Award for Excellence in Advancement of Educational Freedom from the Alliance for the Separation of School & State

Gatto advocated homeschooling, and especially unschooling .

In 1985 and 1988, Gatto ran for the New York Senate .

Gatto most recently worked on a three-part documentary on the compulsory school system.

Main theses

What does school do with the children? Gatto represented this in his work Verdummt again! The invisible curriculum or what children really learn in school (English original title Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling ), which was first published in 1992 , the following theses:

  1. Confusion ( Confusion ): School makes the children confused. It presents an incoherent ensemble of information every 45 minutes that the child has to memorize in order not to be thrown out of school. Apart from the tests and exams, this programming works similarly to television, which takes up almost all of the children's 'free' time. You see and hear something only to forget it again.
  2. Class position ( class position ): School teaches children to accept their class, and not to question further.
  3. Indifference ( Indifference ): School makes the children indifferent. It doesn't matter what the kids want in school.
  4. Emotional dependence ( Emotional Dependency ): school makes children emotionally dependent.
  5. Intellectual dependence ( Intellectual Dependency ): School makes the children intellectually dependent.
  6. Provisional Self-esteem : School teaches children a type of self -esteem that relies on constant expert approval.
  7. You can not hide ( One can not hide ): School that they can not hide makes the children understand because they are supervised at almost any time for any occasion.

In his book The Underground History of American Education , Gatto tried to use personal experience and extensive research to show why and how American schools have become harmful institutions for children.

reception

One education professor called Gatto's books "biting" and "one-sided and hyperbolic, [but] not inexact."

Fonts

  • Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. 1992. (German: Dumb it up again! The invisible curriculum, or what children really learn in school. ) Bremen 2009, ISBN 978-3-934719-35-4 .
  • The Exhausted School. 1993.
  • A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling. 2000, ISBN 1-893163-21-0 .
  • The Underground History of American Education. 2001. (Text online) ( Memento from January 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  • Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling. 2008, ISBN 978-0-86571-631-5 .

On-line

multimedia

Other web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Teacher of the Year Acceptance Speech. ( Memento of October 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Gatto's acceptance speech. Last accessed on December 16, 2009.
  2. ^ 1991 State Teachers of the Year: John Taylor Gatto. ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) www.ccsso.org, last accessed on March 30, 2014.
  3. ^ History of the Alexis de Tocqueville Award. last accessed on December 16, 2009.
  4. ↑ THE ELECTIONS; New York State Senate. In: New York Times . November 10, 1988.
  5. ^ The Fourth Purpose Documentary Series. ( Memento of January 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Fourth Purpose Films, last accessed on December 16, 2009.
  6. ^ John Taylor Gatto: Dumbing Us Down. The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island 2005, pp. 2-11.
  7. ↑ Wade A. Carpenter:  ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) For Those We Won't Reach: An Alternative. In: Educational Horizons. 85, no.3, 2007, p. 153n8., Last accessed on December 16, 2009.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.pilambda.org
personal data
SURNAME Gatto, John Taylor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American teacher, writer, and public speaker
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Monongahela , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH October 25, 2018
Place of death New York City