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Book Review: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

  Book: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Authors: John Taylor Gatto Length: 106 pages Published by: New Society Publishers, USA Year of publication: 1992 The foreword for this non-fiction controversy, by Thomas Moore is enough to tell us about the author; John Taylor Gatto. Moore describes Gatto as his and his father’s inspiration. Gatto an award winning teacher, first worked as a copywriter and it would be interesting for you to read for yourselves what prompted him into school teaching. It is surprising in this case, firstly, that Gatto dedicated the book to his daughter and granddaughter instead of a student or teacher, as usually would have been, coming from a teacher, and secondly that the book is a strict criticism on the schooling system and the fact that it has been made compulsory. ‘…It should be seen as a book that wrote itself’ Gatto reveals in the acknowledgments section. All 5 chapters of this book are based off Gatto’s learning