Haunting Words
John Taylor Gatto's words when he left his profession as a public school teacher haunt me. In spite of having taught for 30 years and having been named New York State Teacher of the year, and of having enjoyed tremendous success in the classroom, he concluded that he simply couldn't do it anymore--face unrelenting criticism and interference for doing what he felt compelled to do for the benefit of his students. He wrote, "An accumulation of disgust and frustration which grew too heavy to be borne finally did me in." The full text of his "I Quit, I Think" announcement can be read here. These are the final sentences of that document: " I can’t teach this way any longer. If you hear of a job where I don’t have to hurt kids to make a living, let me know. Come fall I’ll be looking for work." For Gatto, challenging the status quo was costly. Even being made of stern Italian Catholic stuff did not spare him.
I've read a lot more about Gatto's views and actions and circumstances than what is present at the above link. In his landmark book The Underground History of American Education, his praise of the Amish system of preparing their children for life in the community opened my eyes to our need--not to be more like public schools, not more like ____________ (insert any Christian denomination) schools, but to be "more like us." One of the things we did at Pilgrim to try to be "more like us" was to introduce Anabaptist History as a required course. I think there is widespread consensus that this was a good move. All that to say that we at Pilgrim all are indebted to Gatto, as I see it. I'm not prepared to go to bat for all that he stands for, but he is right in observing that business-as-usual in our schools can hurt children, and when we do little more than copy traditional schools we may be hurting children as well.
One of the extreme situations Gatto faced occurred early in his career when he was assigned to teach typing. He was also instructed, however, that under no circumstances was he to allow the students to touch the typewriters (lest they be destroyed, I suppose). As expected, the students couldn't wait to get started typing, and did so, despite his instructions and efforts to enforce the directive he had been given. Gatto got pretty physical in his efforts--snatching typewriters out of the hands of "rebellious" students. All at once he saw the ridiculousness of the situation, stopped and grinned and said, "This is a typing class. Let's type."
While I've never been in any situation approaching this kind of absurdity, I'm familiar with the mental smack-myself-on-the-forehead kind of insight that says this is ridiculous. Let's get on with learning. Usually this has happened when I've gotten bogged down in creating or using a tool with which to direct and examine and label a student's work, and I suddenly realize that what I'm doing has almost nothing to do with the primary goal at hand--student learning. I re-orient the activity to get back to student learning as soon as possible. When the situation is not of my making, it's harder to correct and redeem it.
In considering how we should do school, and especially in considering whether we are accomplishing what should be accomplished, I believe the adage from the medical profession is apropos. "First, do no harm" is the plain-English version of "abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous."
In the category of avoiding what is harmful, I see one major imperative for adults involved in working with children: Don't destroy anything good that is already present.
Peter Gray identifies "powerful educative instincts" that are among the good things that are already present in children: "curiosity, playfulness, sociability, attentiveness to the activities around them, desire to grow up and desire to do what older children and adults can do."
How do you think traditional educational systems rate by the "do no harm" measure where children's powerful educative instincts are concerned? On the A+ to F continuum, Peter Gray, John Taylor Gatto and I would probably peg the traditional educational systems rating somewhere on the F half of the line.
****************
I have apparently written about John Taylor Gatto's work on several earlier posts. If you're interested in learning more about him (and getting some additional educational theory viewpoints in the process) here is the link to those posts--all collected on one page.
I've read a lot more about Gatto's views and actions and circumstances than what is present at the above link. In his landmark book The Underground History of American Education, his praise of the Amish system of preparing their children for life in the community opened my eyes to our need--not to be more like public schools, not more like ____________ (insert any Christian denomination) schools, but to be "more like us." One of the things we did at Pilgrim to try to be "more like us" was to introduce Anabaptist History as a required course. I think there is widespread consensus that this was a good move. All that to say that we at Pilgrim all are indebted to Gatto, as I see it. I'm not prepared to go to bat for all that he stands for, but he is right in observing that business-as-usual in our schools can hurt children, and when we do little more than copy traditional schools we may be hurting children as well.
One of the extreme situations Gatto faced occurred early in his career when he was assigned to teach typing. He was also instructed, however, that under no circumstances was he to allow the students to touch the typewriters (lest they be destroyed, I suppose). As expected, the students couldn't wait to get started typing, and did so, despite his instructions and efforts to enforce the directive he had been given. Gatto got pretty physical in his efforts--snatching typewriters out of the hands of "rebellious" students. All at once he saw the ridiculousness of the situation, stopped and grinned and said, "This is a typing class. Let's type."
While I've never been in any situation approaching this kind of absurdity, I'm familiar with the mental smack-myself-on-the-forehead kind of insight that says this is ridiculous. Let's get on with learning. Usually this has happened when I've gotten bogged down in creating or using a tool with which to direct and examine and label a student's work, and I suddenly realize that what I'm doing has almost nothing to do with the primary goal at hand--student learning. I re-orient the activity to get back to student learning as soon as possible. When the situation is not of my making, it's harder to correct and redeem it.
In considering how we should do school, and especially in considering whether we are accomplishing what should be accomplished, I believe the adage from the medical profession is apropos. "First, do no harm" is the plain-English version of "abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous."
In the category of avoiding what is harmful, I see one major imperative for adults involved in working with children: Don't destroy anything good that is already present.
Peter Gray identifies "powerful educative instincts" that are among the good things that are already present in children: "curiosity, playfulness, sociability, attentiveness to the activities around them, desire to grow up and desire to do what older children and adults can do."
How do you think traditional educational systems rate by the "do no harm" measure where children's powerful educative instincts are concerned? On the A+ to F continuum, Peter Gray, John Taylor Gatto and I would probably peg the traditional educational systems rating somewhere on the F half of the line.
****************
I have apparently written about John Taylor Gatto's work on several earlier posts. If you're interested in learning more about him (and getting some additional educational theory viewpoints in the process) here is the link to those posts--all collected on one page.
posted by Mrs. I (Miriam Iwashige) at
12:39 PM
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