I just spotted this review on the global indymedia newswire
of what looks to be a great read: radical educational
theorist John Taylor Gatto's latest book, _The Underground
History of American Education_.
I can't emphasize how important it is for radicals
to examine the subject of education, and of how
the "educational system" is a system of totalist
indoctrination, private no less than public. There is
no escape -- for rich kids no less than poor kids. All
too often, leftists swallow the same tripe as everyone
else, believing the problem with The System is just not
enough money, usually not enough money in the schools of
poor neighborhoods. They thereby completely miss the fact
that The System is fundamentally oppressive, a system of
indoctrination designed to subjugate the individual to
the requirements of industrialism.
The problem is that, since everyone is churned through
this system, almost everyone comes to think that
education-as-factory-regimen (complete with bells just
like factories', no less!) is somehow the natural order
of things. But nothing could be further from the truth,
and Gatto in this book examines the actual evolution of
this system and the class and power structure interests
it was designed to serve.
I urge everyone to read at least one of the following:
Ivan Illich: _Deschooling Society_
Paulo Freire: anything by Freire
John Taylor Gatto: anything by Gatto
I leave you with this thought. Those of you who are
activists against the prison industrial complex should
ponder it: There are only two categories of citizens
who are routinely and systematically institutionalized
through absolutely no fault of their own: children,
and the aged.