AMERICAN EDUCATION

History and Philosophy of American Education

History and Philosophy of American Education

Introduction

Dumbing Us Down may be looked at as a critique of all of modern society, not just of the school system. Does Gatto's criticism of the way children are confined throughout their entire educational career in groups of their own age, and substantially of their own social and ethnic status, suggest a deeper flaw than that of schooling?

John Gatto's book “Dumbing Us Down” reveals the numbing heart of obligatory state schooling and thus young children have prized little time to discover for themselves about the community they reside in, or the inhabits they might lead. Instead, they are schooled to only comply instructions and become easily functioning cogs in the developed machine. This paper addresses the above question.

Discussion

In his 26 years of educating, John Taylor Gatto has discovered that unaligned study, community service, large doses of solitude and 1000 distinct apprenticeships with mature individuals of all strolls of life are the keys to assisting young children shatter the thrall of our conforming society. For the sake of our young children and our groups, John Taylor Gatto urges all of us to get schools out of the way and find ways to re-engage young children and families in dynamically commanding our heritage, finances and society. (Gatto, 2005)

The communal philosopher Hannah Arendt one time composed that, "The aim of totalitarian learning has not ever been to instill convictions but to decimate the capability to pattern any.”

 If one were to sample our nation's premier teachers about what the aim of our informative schemes should be, I suppose one would arrive up with as numerous goals as educators. But I furthermore envisage that the capability to pattern one's own convictions unaligned of what was being educated in the school room, the proficiency to believe critically founded upon one's own know-how, would not grade high on numerous lists. In detail, the concept that the aim of learning might have little to do with what proceeds on in the school room would expected hit most teachers, of anything political band of colour, as heresy. (Gatto, 2005)

 In the context of our heritage, it is very easy to glimpse that critical conceiving is a threat. As parents, we all desire what is "best" for our children. Yet, by our own activities and ways of life, and through the claims that we location on our informative organisations, it ...