Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

DUMBING US DOWN reveals the deadening heart of compulsory state schooling: assumptions and structures that stamp out the self-knowledge, curiosity, concentration and solitude essential to learning. Between schooling and television, our children have precious little time to learn for themselves about the community they live in, or the lives they might lead. Instead, they are schooled to merely obey orders and become smoothly functioning cogs in the industrial machine."John Gatto's splendid writings say exactly what needs to be said. I just hope people are listening. --Christopher Lasch, author