The 9 Assumptions of Modern Schooling
by John Taylor Gatto
As Stephen Arons, the legal scholar from the University of
Massachusetts, told an audience at the Hawthorne Valley School a while back:
Centralized control
of government schools creates the appearance of a Unity which is refuted by the
growing mass of families who have removed their children from public or private
schooling and have begun to educate them at home. Requests for homeschooling thus heighten
public confusion about which beliefs are really valid expressions of community
sentiment. The ideology of public
schools is put into sharp relief by homeschooling conflicts.
At least 9 major assumptions describe
the perimeter of the public schooling ideology. Together they warrant a general distrust
of parents and they arise from a view that there is one system of values that
is best for everyone. The State
will prescribe this value code for all.
Taken together the assumptions form a kind of civil gospel in which
significant dissent is pronounced unacceptable to the State, the political
system and the national culture as it is presented by the State.
The Nine Assumptions of Modern
Schooling
1.
Government school is the essential
force for social cohesion. It cannot
happen any other way. A
bureaucratized public order is our defense against chaos and anarchy.
2.
The socialization of children in
groups monitored by state agents is essential; without this, children cannot
learn to get along with others in a pluralistic society.
3.
Children from different backgrounds
and from families with different beliefs must be mixed together. Robert Frost was wrong when he
maintained "good fences make good neighbors."
4.
The certifiable expertise of official
schoolteachers is superior to that of lay people including parents. The protection of children from the
uncertified is a compelling public concern.
5.
Coercion in the name of liberty is a
valid use of state power.
Compelling children to assemble in mandated groups for mandated intervals
with mandated texts and overseers does not interfere with academic learning.
6.
Children will inevitably grow apart
from their parents in beliefs as they grow older and this process must be
supported and encouraged. The best
way to do this is by diluting parental influence and discouraging the
children's attitudes that their own parents are sovereign in either mind or
morality.
7.
The world is full of crazy parents who
will ruin their children. An
overriding concern of schooling is to protect children from bad parenting.
8.
It is not appropriate for any family
to unduly concern itself with the education of its own children, but it may
expend unlimited effort on behalf of the general education of everyone.
9.
The State has the predominant
responsibility for training, morals, and beliefs. Children schooled outside government
scrutiny frequently become anti-social and poverty stricken.
John Taylor Gatto, 1991 New York
State Teacher of the Year. This
essay is reprinted from his book of essays Notes on Education, Schooling
and Curriculum.
© February
2000
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