AtomicQuote

John Taylor Gatto Quotes

Individuality, family, and community are, by definition, expressions of singular organization, never of "one-right-way" thinking on the grand scale. Children and families need some relief from governm...

John Taylor Gatto

Individuality, family, and community are, by definition, expressions of singular organization, never of "one-right-way" thinking on the grand scale. Children and families need some relief from governm...

Tags: alone time, children, education system, family, freedom

In a home school, the kid does 95% of the work. But in a school system, since it's an indoctrination system, a teacher has to do 95% of the work.

John Taylor Gatto

In a home school, the kid does 95% of the work. But in a school system, since it's an indoctrination system, a teacher has to do 95% of the work.

Tags: work, home, school

About Author
John Taylor Gatto (December 15, 1935 – October 25, 2018) was an American author and school teacher. After teaching for nearly 30 years he authored several books on modern education, criticizing its ideology, history, and consequences. He is best known for his books Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, and The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling.

Genius is an exceedingly common human quality, probably natural to most of us.

John Taylor Gatto

Genius is an exceedingly common human quality, probably natural to most of us.

Tags: education, homeschool, homeschooling, learning

I urge you to examine in your own mind the assumptions which must lay behind using the police power to insist that once-sovereign spirits have no choice but to submit to being schooled by strangers.

John Taylor Gatto

I urge you to examine in your own mind the assumptions which must lay behind using the police power to insist that once-sovereign spirits have no choice but to submit to being schooled by strangers.

Tags: education

When you take the free will out of education, that turns it into schooling.

John Taylor Gatto

When you take the free will out of education, that turns it into schooling.

Tags: education, education system, initiative, self education

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?

John Taylor Gatto

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?

Tags: children, education, environment, parenthood, parenting, resources

Self-knowledge is the only basis of true knowledge.

John Taylor Gatto

Self-knowledge is the only basis of true knowledge.

Tags: children, education, self awareness

I feel ashamed that so many of us cannot imagine a better way to do things than locking children up all day in cells instead of letting them grow up knowing their families, mingling with the world, as...

John Taylor Gatto

I feel ashamed that so many of us cannot imagine a better way to do things than locking children up all day in cells instead of letting them grow up knowing their families, mingling with the world, as...

Tags: coercion, collectivism, educate, education, evil, free, freedom, learn, learning, libertarian

Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time an...

John Taylor Gatto

Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time an...

Tags: children, education system

School is about learning to wait your turn, however long it takes to come, if ever. And how to submit with a show of enthusiasm to the judgment of strangers, even if they are wrong, even if your enthu...

John Taylor Gatto

School is about learning to wait your turn, however long it takes to come, if ever. And how to submit with a show of enthusiasm to the judgment of strangers, even if they are wrong, even if your enthu...

Tags: brainwashing, education, freedom, homeschool, homeschooling, indoctrination, learning, schooling, state, state schools

Think of the things killing us as a nation: narcotic drugs, brainless competition, dishonesty, greed, recreational sex, the pornography of violence, gambling, alcohol, and the worst pornography of all...

John Taylor Gatto

Think of the things killing us as a nation: narcotic drugs, brainless competition, dishonesty, greed, recreational sex, the pornography of violence, gambling, alcohol, and the worst pornography of all...

Tags: education, education system, educational philosophy