In my novella Confusion, I criticized my autobiographical upbringing in both a militaristic household and an obedience-centric school system. Freedom existed only in that twilight zone that was the bicycle trip back and forth between school and home.
Later, I discovered that teacher John T. Gatto excellently described everything that’s wrong with our school system in his 1992 book Dumbing Us Down. He described the seven lessons we subject children to:
Confusion(!): Schools teach that nothing makes coherent sense.
Class Position: Children are taught to know and stay in their place in the hierarchy.
Indifference: Ringing a bell every 40-50 minutes and forcing students to drop whatever they’re engaged in. (Nothing is worth finishing.)
Emotional Dependency: Through stars, stickers, smiles, frowns, prizes, honors, and disgraces.
Intellectual Dependency: Only the teacher decides what will be learned.
Provisional Self-Esteem: Self-worth is made dependent on external validation.
Constant Surveillance: Children are taught that they are always being watched and judged.
This isn’t merely some program for the mental torture of children; it is in fact the exact way that humans may tame other human beings into becoming their willful servants. It is the training program for making children into adult serfs.
