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readcharlotte's review
1.0
SERIOUSLY...? I've heard of this throughout my homeschooling career, and this is exactly the kind of crap that makes people think I'm some sort of nut job for homeschooling.
ches's review
1.5
Rating: 1.5 / 5
I'll start by saying that I expected to agree with the book. I support home education and unschooling and I have a personal bias against the school system - I hated school. My school years consisted of being bullied, and being told that I was too opinionated, and that I needed to learn to conform. I agree that schools can destroy a person's innate love of learning. I also think school primes kids to be employees, rather than to be entrepreneurs. Overall I think the school system fails children in multiple ways and it fails some more than others (i.e., SEN children). All this to say, Gatto should have had me in the palm of his hands!!
Instead, he spent 100 pages fear-mongering and spouting sensationalised, inflammatory statements. Gatto constantly states his opinions as facts and offers no supporting evidence. He also displays prolific black and white thinking - and I'm saying this as someone with Asperger's! He also speaks very poorly of the kids he's taught. The kids he teaches are cruel and laugh at weakness apparently - there are multiple sweeping generalisations like this one all through the book.
I'll add that I'm from the UK not the US, however this shouldn't make a difference because despite Gatto having only ever taught in one school district with the US, he still makes the sweeping generalisation that schools (and their purpose) is the same worldwide. There's nothing to back this up, once again, it's literally just his opinion stated like fact.
Gatto also offers no solutions - at least none that are actually workable for the majority of working and middle class parents. He seems incredibly out of touch and has no appreciation for the fact that one of the main reasons many parents send their children to school is because they have no real choice.
Gatto does makes some good points and the history of schooling is interesting, but he says nothing revolutionary. Perhaps these ideas would be revolutionary to someone who had never looked into the nature of the school system or researched home ed before. Unfortunately, this is the worst book I've read about the failings of the school system and the benefits of home education. There are some brilliant books on this topic that don't read like a propaganda leaflet.
Gatto has put me off home education a bit if I'm honest - I mean what if I go to home ed groups and I'm forced to talk to parents who think this BS is good?! šš
I'll start by saying that I expected to agree with the book. I support home education and unschooling and I have a personal bias against the school system - I hated school. My school years consisted of being bullied, and being told that I was too opinionated, and that I needed to learn to conform. I agree that schools can destroy a person's innate love of learning. I also think school primes kids to be employees, rather than to be entrepreneurs. Overall I think the school system fails children in multiple ways and it fails some more than others (i.e., SEN children). All this to say, Gatto should have had me in the palm of his hands!!
Instead, he spent 100 pages fear-mongering and spouting sensationalised, inflammatory statements. Gatto constantly states his opinions as facts and offers no supporting evidence. He also displays prolific black and white thinking - and I'm saying this as someone with Asperger's! He also speaks very poorly of the kids he's taught. The kids he teaches are cruel and laugh at weakness apparently - there are multiple sweeping generalisations like this one all through the book.
I'll add that I'm from the UK not the US, however this shouldn't make a difference because despite Gatto having only ever taught in one school district with the US, he still makes the sweeping generalisation that schools (and their purpose) is the same worldwide. There's nothing to back this up, once again, it's literally just his opinion stated like fact.
Gatto also offers no solutions - at least none that are actually workable for the majority of working and middle class parents. He seems incredibly out of touch and has no appreciation for the fact that one of the main reasons many parents send their children to school is because they have no real choice.
Gatto does makes some good points and the history of schooling is interesting, but he says nothing revolutionary. Perhaps these ideas would be revolutionary to someone who had never looked into the nature of the school system or researched home ed before. Unfortunately, this is the worst book I've read about the failings of the school system and the benefits of home education. There are some brilliant books on this topic that don't read like a propaganda leaflet.
Gatto has put me off home education a bit if I'm honest - I mean what if I go to home ed groups and I'm forced to talk to parents who think this BS is good?! šš
egrullon12's review
4.0
An absolute must read! Written from the New York State teacher of the year. Here are just a few of my favorite quotes...
"The lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? Years of bells will condition all but the strongest to a world that can no longer offer important work to do." pg. 6
"Good students wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. This is the most important lesson of them all: we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves to make meanings of our lives. The expert make all the important choices." pg. 7
"The truth is that, reading, writing, and arithmetic only take about 100 hours to transmit as long as the audience is eager and willing to learn." pg. 12
"It's just impossible for education and school to ever be the same thing." pg. 23
"By preempting fifty percent of the total time of the young, by locking young people up with other young people exactly their own age, by ringing bells to start and stop work, by asking people to think about the same thing at the same time in the same way, by grading people the wasy we grade vegetables- and in a dozen other vile and stupid ways- network schools steal the viatality of communities and replace it with an ugly mechanism." pg 51
"Networks do great harm by apprearing enough like real communities to create expectations that they can manage human social and psychological needs.
....
Belonging to many networks does not add up to having a community, no matter how many you belong to or how often your telephone rings." pg. 53
"No vibrant, satisfying communities can come into being where old and young people are locked away." pg. 57
"Discovering meaning for yourself as well as discovering satisfying purpose for yourself, is a big part of what education is. How can this be done by locking children away from the world is beyond me." pg. 62
"It appears to me as a schoolteacher that schools are already a major cause of weak families and weak communities. They separate parents and children from vital interaction with each other and from true curiosity about each other's lives. Schools stifle family originality by appropriating the critical time needed for any sound idea of family to develop-then they blame the family for it's failure to be a family." pg. 67
"Some disturbing evidence exists that the income of working couples in 1990 has only slightly more purchasing power than the income of the average working man did in 1910. In effect, two laborers for the price of one." pg. 84
If your kids are grown, or you don't have them, if you are a teacher or never set foot in public school, compulsory schooling is affecting everyone, and everyone should read this book!
"The lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? Years of bells will condition all but the strongest to a world that can no longer offer important work to do." pg. 6
"Good students wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. This is the most important lesson of them all: we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves to make meanings of our lives. The expert make all the important choices." pg. 7
"The truth is that, reading, writing, and arithmetic only take about 100 hours to transmit as long as the audience is eager and willing to learn." pg. 12
"It's just impossible for education and school to ever be the same thing." pg. 23
"By preempting fifty percent of the total time of the young, by locking young people up with other young people exactly their own age, by ringing bells to start and stop work, by asking people to think about the same thing at the same time in the same way, by grading people the wasy we grade vegetables- and in a dozen other vile and stupid ways- network schools steal the viatality of communities and replace it with an ugly mechanism." pg 51
"Networks do great harm by apprearing enough like real communities to create expectations that they can manage human social and psychological needs.
....
Belonging to many networks does not add up to having a community, no matter how many you belong to or how often your telephone rings." pg. 53
"No vibrant, satisfying communities can come into being where old and young people are locked away." pg. 57
"Discovering meaning for yourself as well as discovering satisfying purpose for yourself, is a big part of what education is. How can this be done by locking children away from the world is beyond me." pg. 62
"It appears to me as a schoolteacher that schools are already a major cause of weak families and weak communities. They separate parents and children from vital interaction with each other and from true curiosity about each other's lives. Schools stifle family originality by appropriating the critical time needed for any sound idea of family to develop-then they blame the family for it's failure to be a family." pg. 67
"Some disturbing evidence exists that the income of working couples in 1990 has only slightly more purchasing power than the income of the average working man did in 1910. In effect, two laborers for the price of one." pg. 84
If your kids are grown, or you don't have them, if you are a teacher or never set foot in public school, compulsory schooling is affecting everyone, and everyone should read this book!
kdavis324's review
1.0
Not great. I thought this would reinforce our decision to homeschool, but instead I found that I homeschool for very different reasons. Gatto makes a lot of grandiose statements with very little evidence other than a few anecdotes. I find his overall tone to be condescending with thinly veiled racism, classism, and sexism thrown in.
bookseyg's review against another edition
4.0
Succinct, assured and devoid of the bitterness reminiscent of Bryan Caplan, Dumbing Us Down is a stellar proposition to the road of self education. The idea that accumulation as a philosophy leads to dependent personalities has stuck with me. Becoming merely āappendages of an abstractionā is a genuine fear of mine.
Genius is an exceedingly common quality, but how would we know? Sitting in confinement with those of your own age and class ā(seals) you in a continuous present much the same way television doesā. The constant movement and subject change dilutes attention and fosters indifference. Above all, autonomy is rationed. I remember craving solitude back in my school days, not just from the incessant socialisation but the inability to dive deeper into a topic without fear of ridicule or interruption.
I agree with a lot of this bookās sentiment which is why I am so enthused. Unity canāt be engineered like an institution attempts to. The networks they provide are not the same as communities, and we need the latter. I guess it boils down to ātrust(ing) children and families to know whatās best for themselvesā. And while I agree with the ideals, how practical is it when disadvantaged children only access to resources and good role models is within the walls of school? Iām often frustrated with the lack of solutions proposed in these modern pedagogy books.
Even so, I am even more encouraged to follow my intuition and curiosity for extended periods of time. Hereās to living dialectically!
Genius is an exceedingly common quality, but how would we know? Sitting in confinement with those of your own age and class ā(seals) you in a continuous present much the same way television doesā. The constant movement and subject change dilutes attention and fosters indifference. Above all, autonomy is rationed. I remember craving solitude back in my school days, not just from the incessant socialisation but the inability to dive deeper into a topic without fear of ridicule or interruption.
I agree with a lot of this bookās sentiment which is why I am so enthused. Unity canāt be engineered like an institution attempts to. The networks they provide are not the same as communities, and we need the latter. I guess it boils down to ātrust(ing) children and families to know whatās best for themselvesā. And while I agree with the ideals, how practical is it when disadvantaged children only access to resources and good role models is within the walls of school? Iām often frustrated with the lack of solutions proposed in these modern pedagogy books.
Even so, I am even more encouraged to follow my intuition and curiosity for extended periods of time. Hereās to living dialectically!
marianne_brough's review
2.75
Some intriguing concepts and some problematic assertions. It would incite conversation but does not have practical answers.