List of John Taylor Gatto Quotes

The Obligation To Amuse And Instruct Myself Was Entirely My Own, And People Who Didn't Know That Were Childish People, To Be Avoided If Possible. Certainly Not To Be Trusted.

Curiosity Has No Important Place In My Work, Only Conformity.

Shouldn't We Also Ask Ourselves What The Consequences Are Of Scrambling To Provide The "most" Of Everything To Our Children In A World Of Fast Dwindling Resources?

In Our Secular Society, School Has Become The Replacement For Church, And Like Church It Requires That Its Teachings Must Be Taken On Faith.

The Shocking Possibility That Dumb People Don't Exist In Sufficient Numbers To Warrant The Millions Of Careers Devoted To Tending Them Will Seem Incredible To You. Yet That Is My Central Proposition: The Mass Dumbness Which Justifies Official Schooling First Had To Be Dreamed Of; It Isn't Real.

The Truth Is That Schools Don't Really Teach Anything Except How To Obey Orders. This Is A Great Mystery To Me Because Thousands Of Humane, Caring People Work In Schools As Teachers And Aides And Administrators, But The Abstract Logic Of The Institution Overwhelms Their Individual Contributions.

We Have Been Taught (that Is, Schooled) In This Country To Think Of 'success' As Synonymous With, Or At Least Dependent Upon, 'schooling,' But Historically That Isn’t True In Either An Intellectual Or A Financial Sense. And Plenty Of People Throughout The World Today Find A Way To Educate Themselves Without Resorting To A System Of Compulsory Secondary Schools That All Too Often Resemble Prison.

We Could Encourage The Best Qualities Of Youthfulness - Curiosity, Adventure, Resilience, The Capacity For Surprising Insight Simply By Being More Flexible About Time, Texts, And Tests, By Introducing Kids Into Truly Competent Adults, And By Giving Each Student What Autonomy He Or She Needs In Order To Take A Risk Every Now And Then. But We Don't Do That.

If You Live In A Material Universe Where Acquiring Things Is Very Important To You, Then Family Is An Absolute Deterrent To Maintaining That Sort Of A World, Because Family Involves Values Like Affection, And Sympathy, And Passion, And Types Of Pleasure That Lead Nowhere In A Material Sense.

I Teach How To Fit Into A World I Don't Want To Live In. I Just Can't Do It Anymore.

...good Things Happen To The Human Spirit When It Is Left Alone.

It Only Takes About 50 Contact Hours To Transmit Basic Literacy And Math Skills Well Enough That Kids Can Be Self-teachers From Then On. The Cry For 'basic Skills' Practice Is A Smokescreen Behind Which Schools Pre-empt The Time Of Children For Twelve Years And Teach Them The Six Lessons I've Just Taught You.