Headline, July18, 2013

'''THE SHAMEFUL UNDERGROUN​D

 HISTORY OF EDUCATION'​''

And then, John Taylor Gatto set about writing a book that he got published some years ago:  ''The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problems of Modern Schooling''. A nearly decade in the making, the enormous volume is a sprawling work of history, political philosophy, and citizen activism.

Two major publishers liked the book enough to offer a Gatto a sizable advances   -on the condition that he trim the pages and mute the language. The Great Man refused. So he produced and distributed the book himself, selling over 5000 copies the first week alone.

''This is a Blair Witch of Project of books,'' said Roland Legiardi Laura, an award-winning documentary filmmaker a former eighth-grade student of Gatto's. ''It's been under the radar, but not for long.'' Legiardi-Laura and his former teacher then went on to adapt the book into a documentary that aimed to do for education what Ken burn's series on the Civil War did for the war between states.

The Underground History of American Education is pointed and provocative. Its hard to agree with everything Gatto has to say, but it's even harder to come away from the searing critique unchanged. A single reading of single essay inevitably makes you start to question the purpose and promise of American education. ''I had no intention of being an author. I hate being a product. But I feel that I have a responsibility to bear witness to what I have seen.''

''I never thought I would be a teacher. The prevailing Ivy League ethic when I left college in the late 1950s was that you would be a man in a gray flannel suit. My roommate in New York City at the time was a waiter who worked at the Waldorf-Astoria, but he also had a teaching license. He taught for one day and said. ''You have to be crazy to do this for a living.'' And he threw his teaching license in a drawer. 

His teaching license didn't have a picture on it, so I took a few days off from the ad agency, used the license, and went around the city substitute teaching. I was bored, I guess. And I was tweaking the city's nose by teaching as Dick Boehm. But I ran into some terrifying experiences in which kids were obviously being denied basic ''intellectual tools''. 

And the reason, at least the surface reason, that they were being denied those tools was the belief that there were some things that those kids couldn't do. People would tell me,'' It would embarrass the kids to do more.'' It's real easy when you are a young man, to buy that CRAP.''

So, Professor Gatto when did you stop buying this crap?

''There were two experiences that changed my life. One took place in a school in Harlem on 120th Street. I tended to favor subbing in Harlem because they were so desperate to get bodies in there that i was sure they wouldn't check the records. I was assigned to teach a Spanish Course. I knew a couple of hundred words of Spanish.

So, i figured that I could fake it pretty well. I got in their and asked the kids if they knew how to tell time. I assumed that they did, and I thought we could review it. But they said no, they didn't know how to tell time. I said,'' I can teach you how to tell time in this one class period, and you'll know it forever,'' so i did that.

You get five classes a day as a sub, and by the third class, I got summoned to the Principal's office. Some assistant principal began to scream at me. Her face turned a deep purple red. 'How dare you do this! You have destroyed the entire curriculum for the month of June. I have no idea how I will explain it to the teacher when he gets back.'' she said. 'But I'll tell you this: You will never be hired by this school again!'

At first I thought I was locked up with a lunatic! Then the more I reflected on this odd situation, the more I realized that this was the attitude in all subject areas. They expected so little of these kids that it was easy to communicate the whole curriculum for the month of June in 15 minutes.''

The post continues so never ever miss.

Please share this Post with the whole World. ''Spare No School''. And don't rest, we have miles and miles to go.

With respectful and loving dedication : !WOW! : World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless. Great Work For Keeping The World Up All Night.

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless