John Taylor Gatto won the New York State teacher of the year award in 1991 (New York state’s education website). His ambition to be a great teacher led him to the realization that the system itself is broken and he was so disgusted with it that he resigned. The claims that John Taylor Gatto makes are much worse than that they’re defaulting to the teacher’s password.
This was the only one of the education theorists that I studied while getting my teachning qualification that was remotely inspiring.
Man, Gatto spurred off so much thought for me. That was in my early 20′s so it’s not all readily coming to mind right now, but wow. I feel like… he explained so much. I’m not sure why you say he’s inspiring. So much of life that didn’t make any sense began to make sense after that. But that was one of the worst existential crises I’ve ever experienced. To realize that your whole life you had been stifled by the thing you thought was teaching you: abominable. There are horrors worse than death. That is one of them.
When I was 17, I decided to tear my whole reality apart because I noticed that it contained too many flaws. This was excruciating and terrifying. When I was 18, I had the undignified experience of realizing I could not allow myself to vote because I wasn’t taught to think critically and was still learning to. When I was in my early 20′s, I discovered logical fallacies and went “SOMEBODY WROTE THIS ALL DOWN!!?!!?? Why didn’t I know about this!?” I was a mess of a young woman—it took years of effort to put together a decently competent mind after all that.
Failing to teach reasoning skills in school is a crime against humanity.
This was the only one of the education theorists that I studied while getting my teachning qualification that was remotely inspiring.
Man, Gatto spurred off so much thought for me. That was in my early 20′s so it’s not all readily coming to mind right now, but wow. I feel like… he explained so much. I’m not sure why you say he’s inspiring. So much of life that didn’t make any sense began to make sense after that. But that was one of the worst existential crises I’ve ever experienced. To realize that your whole life you had been stifled by the thing you thought was teaching you: abominable. There are horrors worse than death. That is one of them.
When I was 17, I decided to tear my whole reality apart because I noticed that it contained too many flaws. This was excruciating and terrifying. When I was 18, I had the undignified experience of realizing I could not allow myself to vote because I wasn’t taught to think critically and was still learning to. When I was in my early 20′s, I discovered logical fallacies and went “SOMEBODY WROTE THIS ALL DOWN!!?!!?? Why didn’t I know about this!?” I was a mess of a young woman—it took years of effort to put together a decently competent mind after all that.
Failing to teach reasoning skills in school is a crime against humanity.