Product Description

With over 70,000 copies of the first edition in print, this radical treatise on public education has been a New Society Publishers' bestseller for 10 years! Thirty years in New York City's public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine. This second edition describes the wide-spread impact of the book and Gatto's "guerrilla teaching."

John Gatto has been a teacher for 30 years and is a recipient of the New York State Teacher of the Year award. His other titles include A Different Kind of Teacher (Berkeley Hills Books, 2001) and The Underground History of American Education (Oxford Village Press, 2000).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5668 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

From Library Journal
In this tenth-anniversary edition, Gatto updates his theories on how the U.S. educational system cranks out students the way Detroit cranks out Buicks. He contends that students are more programmed to conform to economic and social norms rather than really taught to think.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
John Gatto was a teacher in New York City's public schools for over 30 years and is a recipient of the New York State Teacher of the Year award. A much-sought after speaker on education throughout the United States, his other books include A Different Kind of Teacher (Berkeley Hills Books, 2001) and The Underground History of American Education (Oxford Village Press, 2000).

Customer Reviews

Great!
i got my product in a timely manner and it was in great condition. Thanks!!

a must for taxpayers, teachers, parents and students
John Taylor Gatto taught in New York City public schools for 30 years. He is now a writer and a lecturer. He was named New York City Teacher of the Year and New York State Teacher of the Year.

"The Seven Lesson School Teacher" is the first chapter of his book. It is the speech he gave after he was named New York State teacher of the year in 1991.

I've summarized the first chapter (which I taught to my high school sophomores and juniors).

Mr. Gatto said that he teaches 7 things. They are as follows:

1)confusion - lessons are out of context & out of sequence; random instruction; standardized tests; too many subjects; assemblies; fire drills; staff development days; age segregation; no depth in subjects; most teachers are not experts

2)class position - kids assigned numbers; stay in classes; stay in classrooms; envy and fear of the better classes; contempt for the lower classes

3)indifference - forced enthusiasm; bell rings, students must stop doing stuff (in class or change classes)

4)emotional dependency - individuality is discouraged; students lack rights; teachers & administrators manipulate and control the students

5)intellectual dependency - lesson chosen by teachers, administration or school board; students told to wait before working; wait for the expert to tell you what to do; helpless people are good for the economy (food service, law, medicine, teaching, tv, entertainment)

6)provisional self-esteem - confident people are problems; you are to be evaluated & judged; most grades have very little work in them; self-evaluation is rarely done; people must rely on experts to see their value

7)one can't hide - control and surveillance; no private spaces or private time; little time between classes; people trained to tell on each other; homework keeps them busy and away from other learning

"Schools are an essential support system for social engineering that condemns most to be subordinate stones in a pyramid that narrows as it ascends to a terminal of control" pg. 13 (this reminds me of Huxley's Brave New World)

Mr. Gatto makes a few other points in his speech as well. I've listed them in bullet format for you.

- Schools were created partly as a result of two "Red Scares" in 1848 and 1919. People in power were afraid of the industrial poor and wanted to reign in the culture of the new immigrants (Celtics, Slavs and Latins).
- Look at the seven lessons: they are "all prime training for permanent underclasses, people deprived forever of finding the center of their own special genius." (16)
- These lessons and the problems in our schools have now seized the middle class as well
- Critical thinking is not taught
- Solutions: family schools, farm schools, small entrepreneurial schools, religious schools, craft schools
- Lessons not taught: self-reliance, self-motivation, perseverance, courage, dignity, love
- TV, sports/clubs, and jobs take up all the free time outside of school - learning and the feeling of community are stifled

Makes you think.
I wish I'd read this while I was in school; I'd have seen then that there was something wrong with the system, not me. This book is thought-provoking and a must-read for parents of kids of all ages.