Four men were the architects of modern forced schooling
Welcome to my first blog post! I’m starting #truthtuesday and so today I’ll be introducing the history of public education.
“Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best of times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents....”
Let me start off by introducing you to one of my favorite authors, John Taylor Gatto.
He was a New York City Public Educator for over 30 years. He has been New York City Teacher of the Year THREE times and New York State Teacher of the Year once. He is a huge whistle blower of the American public education system and he is one of my heroes. He is author to several books, two that I’ve read called Dumbing Us Down and The Underground History of American Education (I’m reading right now). Go grab a copy of each! They are so eye opening!
He has also written an essay which was published in the Wall Street Journal called “I Quit, I Think”. An excerpt...
“Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best of times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents....” there is more but for now I’ll stop.
In the above picture, you see four men who were the architects of modern forced schooling. These were men that were the great coal powers of the ninetieth century. Can you tell who they are? Hint: the bottom right founded a major automobile manufacturing company. Hitler regarded HENRY FORD as his inspiration 🙈😮 You might ask what does this have to do with schooling, let me continue...
“After the Civil War, utopian speculative analysis regarding isolation of children in custodial compounds where they could be subjected to deliberate molding routines began to be discussed seriously by the Northeastern policy elites of business, government, and university life...
....These discussions were inspired by a growing realization that the productive potential of machinery driven by coal was limitless. Rail road development made possible by coal startling new inventions like the telegraph, seemed suddenly to make village life and local dreams irrelevant. A new governing mind was emerging in harmony with the new reality.
The principal motivation for this revolution and family and community life seems on the surface to be greed, but appearance concealed philosophical visions approaching religious exaltation and intensity-That effective early indoctrination of all children would lead to an orderly scientific society, one controlled by the best people, now freed from the obsolete straitjacket of democratic traditions and historic American libertarian attitudes.
Forced schooling was the medicine to bring the whole continental population into conformity with these plans so it might be regarded as a “human resource”. Managed as a “workforce”.
No more Ben Franklin’s or Tom Edison’s could be allowed; they set a bad example. One way to manage this transformation was to see to it that individuals were prevented from taking up their working lives until an advanced age when the ardor of youth and it’s insufferable self confidence had cooled.” ——Gatto in The Underground History of American Public Education chapter 2
There is a lot of information and so I’m trying to be succinct AND very informative. It’s hard picking which sections to include because it’s so interlacing and complicated. So if you have questions, let me know. I’m still reading this book so I’m not an expert by any means. Yet my goal is to get people talking. So comment below!