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Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

117 点作者 cm_silva超过 2 年前

24 条评论

hourago超过 2 年前
&gt; But our society is disintegrating, and in such a society, the only successful people are self-reliant, confident, and individualistic — because the community life that protects the dependent and the weak is dead.<p>Too many people has apocalyptic views of the world. And to push for individualistic behavior when you think that your society is disintegrating seems to just accelerate any problems that may exists. 30 years later the collapse still has not happened.<p>&gt; The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory;<p>I have yet to see a child that is not curious, you need some war-level trauma to stop children curiosity. I would guess that the author real complain is that children are not interested in the same things that him, and that is why he is pissed off.<p>&gt; they’re just nice kids from central Harlem, bright and alert, but so badly schooled when they came to me that most of them couldn’t add or subtract with any fluency.<p>I am all for better schools and I can not even imagine how bad schooling has been in mainly black neighborhoods but to &quot;just let the kids learn by themselves&quot; seems as absurd as the idea of &quot;tabula rasa&quot;. Kids need to learn to learn but they also need to be taught.<p>&gt; The Swedes realized this in 1976, when they effectively abandoned state adoption of unwanted children and instead spent national time and treasure on reinforcing the original family so that children born to Swedes were wanted.<p>This one is interesting as Abortion laws are changing in the USA.<p>&gt; Family is the main engine of education.<p>This makes sense. I just think that schools also have their place no only for education but as socializing places.<p>&gt; to promote during school time confluences of parent and child that will strengthen family bonds.<p>Sweden has a generous parental leave. That is a good way of achieving this goal.<p>In general the article expresses a too extreme view of things. But it has some good points even if I do not agree with all the conclusions.
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hintymad超过 2 年前
&gt; &quot;just let the kids learn by themselves&quot;<p>This has been the central theme of progressive education movement in the US. IIRC, Jo Boaler has been advocating that kids could discover most of the maths by exploring and learning by themselves. I fundamentally disagree with this belief, though. It took thousands of years for our greatest minds to simplify our maths to its current incarnation. Discovering &quot;everything&quot; by myself wastes my time and reduces my chance of working on something more meaningful.
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fiftyfifty超过 2 年前
I just don&#x27;t think I can agree with Gatto&#x27;s main premise that schools aren&#x27;t educating students or that a formal education serves no purpose in the modern world. We have seen world wide that schools are THE most effective tool for lifting people out of poverty. We also see that the countries with the best schools are dominating the world economy. There are also plenty of counter examples we can find: entire countries without well organized compulsory education systems that have incredibly high rates of illiteracy and poverty.<p>Here we are 25 years after Gatto gave this speech, our society has not &quot;disintegrated&quot; yet, Well-schooled people are far from irrelevant, in fact they have given us nearly every single modern comfort and technological breakthrough in modern history and they have continued to do so over the last 25 years.<p>What Gatto is proposing would just create even more inequality and social injustice, where only parents with the means to see their children get a good education can do so, either by having the background and time to homeschool or the money to provide private schooling or tutors for their own children.
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ok_dad超过 2 年前
I have another recent comment where I lament that the rise of intelligent machines will lead to humans being looked on as just another machine to do a job by those with ultimate power in our society, but according to this, we have already become those machine cogs.<p>Instead of trying to produce a &quot;whole person&quot; out of the schooling system in America, we are trying to produce specialized devices for the performance of certain tasks. Some of the students are sorted into the &quot;high power devices&quot; bin (lawyers, programmers, etc.), some into the &quot;low power device&quot; bin (manual labor), and some into the rubbish bin (physically disabled, mentally ill, etc.). Much like Intel bins their chips, in fact. Once you bin the parts from the school system, then you start to ship those parts throughout the workforce, or perhaps do some modifications to them in a university to achieve the most optimal output.<p>I guess there were a lot of people who saw this before me, and I am sure that like them my view will never get mainstream traction. Someday, perhaps, an AI will be developed to read our internet comments, and I&#x27;ll be labeled as someone who needs maintenance and shipped off to a re-education facility.
vector_spaces超过 2 年前
Wow, it&#x27;s wild to see this here. About 20 years ago, a grief counselor I was seeing after the death of my mom shared this article with me after I told him about how school felt pointless and cruel. I stopped seeing that grief counselor not long after (I think my family couldn&#x27;t afford to see him) but the impact of this essay was deep. It was the first piece of writing I had read by 14 that critiqued something as mundane and entrenched as the public school system in the United States, and in terms that spoke to my experiences.<p>It inspired me to start honing my writing skills with intentionality, and sharpened my interest in activism.<p>I have mixed feelings reading this article now -- it&#x27;s not quite as well written as I remember, although I still agree with many of the critiques.
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fiftyfifty超过 2 年前
Cached version:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webcache.googleusercontent.com&#x2F;search?q=cache:xHi_lK2Nr70J:https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thesunmagazine.org&#x2F;issues&#x2F;175&#x2F;why-schools-dont-educate&amp;cd=1&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webcache.googleusercontent.com&#x2F;search?q=cache:xHi_lK...</a>
hintymad超过 2 年前
&gt; The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory<p>Maybe kids are just not curious about what the author teaches? As a parent, I have to admit that kids are not necessarily curious about what we value. My kids are not curious about STEM, at least not yet. They are, however, are very curious about how to use TNT in minecraft, or how to learn cartwheel. It&#x27;s unfortunate (or forutnate?) that not every one is born curious about STEM or any subject like their teachers or parents do.
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dieselgate超过 2 年前
This is a really well written article though I’m mixed in my agreements with it. Thought it was funny they mentioned the author “growing garlic” in the forward. It’s also curious to read about literacy rates before&#x2F;after “compulsory” education and how they seemingly dropped - is this potentially because of different “standards” in defining literacy?<p>I feel everything I’ve ever learned was “taught to myself” even though I’ve spent close to two decades in school. Of course a teacher can catalyze the process by presenting material in an organized way. They say “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” and at first this seemed like an appropriate analogy for learning - but after some reflection is only partly relevant. Peer groups can be beneficial with catalyzing learning as well - of course it depends on the peers.<p>This is a big topic but found it refreshing to be exposed to some novel (and old) thoughts
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Test0129超过 2 年前
I have nothing of value to add to this. This speech encapsulates my experience in school growing up America and my experience now watching the children in my family grow up. It sums up the cause and effect of all of it exactly as I had supposed and hearing it from a person with actual authority makes it all the more meaningful. Schools, especially K-12, have always felt like a prison and this author put it in a way I couldn&#x27;t even begin to write.<p>More people should read this. It may be the most important document on the state of the American education system in it&#x27;s history and it&#x27;s a full 3 decades old.
cpr超过 2 年前
Gatto is a true prophet. See his writings at<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.johntaylorgatto.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.johntaylorgatto.com&#x2F;</a><p>(though his site is having some problems, it looks like).
hot_gril超过 2 年前
There are things I learned in school and didn&#x27;t understand their importance for a while. That&#x27;s fine. But it hurts to see kids learning some things they will never use, or missing more important things.<p>English&#x2F;reading is way overemphasized, and overly focused on emotional fictional literature. Sorry, I don&#x27;t give a damn how Juliette feels; maybe I can pretend to care for a year, but 9 years? It didn&#x27;t matter later in life that I got Bs in English, despite it actually being a useful subject. Maybe this is where the US curriculum differs from other countries the most.<p>Economics should be part of the standard curriculum. Plenty of average people participate in an economy every day without understanding it, other than having street smarts.<p>Math class is seemingly based around the final destination of Calculus AB or BC, but calculus is overly specific if you think about it. Sure, teach the basics, but don&#x27;t drill the kids for months on solving integrals with trig sub for one. There are so many other math subjects that get ignored.<p>Math proofs are basically nonexistent in high school. Everything is just thrown at you then becomes a game of memorizing algorithms and crunching numbers. I get why so many kids don&#x27;t like it.<p>History is OK but usually lacks connection to current events.
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giantg2超过 2 年前
There seem to be some good points in here. I&#x27;m not sure I agree with all of them, but the conclusion that family is important to learning seems to be true in my experience. Many parents get so hung up on the &quot;best&quot; schools they ignore their own possible contributions. Eg work 50-80 hours a week, never teach their kids anything, and complain when the school or after school activity is doing something &quot;wrong&quot; because their kid isn&#x27;t a star.<p>Unfortunately home schooling isn&#x27;t an option for most, even if it is possibly one of the best options within the current system (atleast education wise, not for the conformity).<p>&quot;Our teenage-suicide rate is the highest in the world — and suicidal kids are rich kids for the most part, not poor. In Manhattan, 70 percent of all new marriages last less than five years.&quot;<p>These are very interesting and maybe I&#x27;ll do some more research on these.
bluSCALE4超过 2 年前
Amazing this came out 22 years ago. It must be thinkers like these that created schools like Cristo Rey in Chicago where kids get bused around the city working real jobs, alternating every so often. But back to this being 22 years old... the internet wasn&#x27;t really even a thing back then. If TV was a threat, then the internet is a bomb. Unfortunately, I don&#x27;t see things getting any better, even in &quot;good&quot; schools. I&#x27;m at least happy that I&#x27;ve read this so I can adjust my parenting to promote more individualism.
RankingMember超过 2 年前
&gt; My children watch fifty-five hours of television a week, according to recent reports.<p>Would love to have been able to see a source on that whopper- even in the days before most had computers, I don&#x27;t see any reporting showing ~8 hours a day of consumption for children.
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HereIGoAgain超过 2 年前
The problem is that schools, especially in the west, have totally lost the plot! We need to get back to its original and sole purpose. Teaching young people the basic skills needed to work in society. As well as the skills needed to move onto secondary education and vocational training. The fact that so much time and effort is spent on things other than core subjects, even while we graduate children who fail at one or more of said subjects, is inexcusable. It also makes efforts to push things like political&#x2F;social activism and issues onto children, all the more infuriating! (not to mention the real harm and derangement doing so causes to children and young people&#x27;s mental health)
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rgrieselhuber超过 2 年前
The Ultimate History Lesson: A Weekend with John Taylor Gatto [1] is a (long) revealing look into the history of education in the United States. I don&#x27;t agree with everything but certainly had my assumptions challenged.<p>As more families choose to eschew government schools, it&#x27;s hard to argue that he was not ahead of his time with his observations.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=YQiW_l848t8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=YQiW_l848t8</a>
emeth超过 2 年前
From the article:<p>&gt; But I am confident that as they gain self-knowledge, they’ll also become self-teachers — and only self-teaching has any lasting value.<p>Makes me think of Dorothy Sayer&#x27;s 1948 article, The Lost Tools of Learning [0].<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pccs.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2016&#x2F;06&#x2F;LostToolsOfLearning-DorothySayers.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pccs.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2016&#x2F;06&#x2F;LostToolsOfL...</a>
2OEH8eoCRo0超过 2 年前
Off topic but why are there so many fairly fresh accounts posting hot takes that reach high on the front page lately?
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diffxx超过 2 年前
For anyone interested in the arguments in this piece, Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich is highly recommended.
tboyd47超过 2 年前
&gt; Using school as a sorting mechanism, we appear to be on the way to creating a caste system, complete with untouchables who wander through subway trains begging and sleep on the streets.<p>Wow, he nailed that one, didn&#x27;t he?<p>&gt; But keep in mind that in the United States almost nobody who reads, writes, or does arithmetic gets much respect. We are a land of talkers; we pay talkers the most and admire talkers the most, and so our children talk constantly, following the public models of television and schoolteachers.<p>In 2022, replace talking with dancing.<p>&gt; The children I teach are cruel to each other; they lack compassion for misfortune, they laugh at weakness, and they have contempt for people whose need for help shows too plainly.<p>Played any multiplayer FPS recently?<p>&gt; But no large-scale reform is ever going to repair our damaged children and our damaged society until we force the idea of “school” open — to include family as the main engine of education.<p>As he proves a few paragraphs later, this is the one thing the school system will never do because the two institutions (school and family) are in direct competition with each other for the hearts and minds of children.
hot_gril超过 2 年前
The author compares American education to other industrialized nations at the start but never brings up those comparisons again. The radical ideas he proposes aren&#x27;t implemented in other countries AFAIK. What makes the US different?
pneumatic1超过 2 年前
There’s a book called Dumbing Us Down that is a collection of his essays. I liked it.<p>I’m glad I read it after I finished school and before my kids start.
tmaly超过 2 年前
John Gatto has been on this rant forever. I think even years after this 90s post I could recall him in articles.
tempie_deleteme超过 2 年前
because they teach.<p>the difference being drawing (evoking, pulling) something already there out of the student (education).<p>versus putting some <i>knowledge</i> from the outside inside of the student (teaching).