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 experiences, speeches or articles. They raise important questions and reveal shocking truths about schooling. Such as the fact that school does not teach a subject, instead it teaches 7 problematic lessons, the most disturbing of which are confusion, indifference, and emotional and intellectual dependency. Gatto goes on to say that teaching is not the task of one individual or institution, he emphasizes on the importance of non-certified teachers and that I believe comes from the idea that every person, place, animal or thing has the potential to teach as long as the learner is interested. One of his rather mind blowing view is that television is only another mode of schooling. Between school and tv children get little time to actually ‘learn’ something worthwhile, which Gatto believes is only possible in families and communities. This is where it gets really interesting because hereafter Gatto draws a definitive line between ‘communities’ and ‘networks’ saying that there is no place for the weak in the latter and that a network is extremely materialistic and opportunistic. Schools, he says, may develop a network to some extent but not a community.

Up till now I found the book surprising but agreeable, but there was one point I just could not get myself to accept. Gatto thinks that law enforcement should not be there to control the people, he advocates for freedom, even from the law. Arguing that people’s own conscience should be developed enough to stop them from crime. I disagree because ideally it is not possible for every individual in the society to be as morally high as that. But of course, it is up to the reader to read and interpret for himself the meaning he wants to.

Other than that I liked the matter of fact way of writing. Though the text was supported by facts and historical evidence, Gatto did not take many pages to explain his very controversial points, which I think had all the more effect on the reader. For me the referencing was a bit difficult to understand as the book was purely written in American context and as he is, Gatto did not explain the references either. This I believe, could have been better.

I would recommend this book to homeschooling parents, those thinking about of homeschooling, and especially those who have a bias against the ideology. However, children going to school should not read it as it might influence their views about their teachers, parents and schools, all three of which deserve a lot of respect whether or not they do their job well.