Wishing John Taylor Gatto a Quick Recovery

Recently we received the sad news from our friends at the Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) that John Taylor Gatto has had a serious stroke.  Gatto has an incredible inspiration to us in our work to develop a learning environment for New Orleans youth that is not manipulative and doesn’t follow the familiar pattern in compulsory education of dumbing us down and programming us conform to economic and social norms rather than being really taught to think. Please join us in wishing him a speedy recovery.

 

From Jerry Mintz at AERO: Last night I talked to his wife who told me that John was in the hospital for a week and has been in a rehab center for three weeks. He has speech problems and problems on his left side. But she said he can walk 40 steps now and his speech is getting better. We need John to return to full health! If you would like to send some good words to John you can write to me and I’ll put them together and get the messages to him. Send to JerryAERO@AOL.com

 

Schooling is not Education - part 1

 

About John Taylor Gatto:

 

John Taylor Gatto climaxed his teaching career as New York State Teacher of the Year in 1990 after being named New York City Teacher of the Year on three occasions. He quit teaching on the OP-ED page of the Wall Street Journal in 1991 while still New York State Teacher of the Year, claiming that he was no longer willing to hurt children (click here to read his full OP-ED).

 

Schooling is not Education - part 2

 

Later that year he was the subject of a show at Carnegie Hall called "An Evening With John Taylor Gatto," which launched a career of public speaking in the area of school reform, which has taken Gatto over a million and a half miles in all fifty states and seven foreign countries. In 1992, he was named Secretary of Education in the Libertarian Party Shadow Cabinet, and he has been included in Who's Who in America from 1996 on. In 1997, he was given the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for his contributions to the cause of liberty, and was named to the Board of Advisors of the National TV-Turnoff Week.

 

Schooling is not Education - part 3

 

Recently, John Taylor Gatto has launched what he calls an “open conspiracy” to destroy the standardized testing industry. This “conspiracy”, is being called the Bartleby Project. "The Bartleby Project begins by inviting 60,000,000 American students, one by one, to peacefully refuse to take standardized tests or to participate in any preparation for these tests; it asks them to act because adults chained to institutions and corporations are unable to; because these tests pervert education, are disgracefully inaccurate, impose brutal stresses without reason, and actively encourage a class system which is poisoning the future of the nation." Read John Taylor Gatto's full statement on the Bartleby Project.

 

Schooling is not Education - part 4

 

We support the Bartleby Project the rights of students and parents to opt-out of standardized tests. Just say: I would prefer not to take your test.  Learn more about the growing movement to opt-out of standardized tests by visiting United Opt Out National: The Movement to End Punitive Public School Testing.

 

Schooling is not Education - part 5

We encourage you to join us in sending your well wishes as he recovers, and please, check out some more of our favorite works from John Taylor Gatto:

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling

A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling

Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Comulsory Schooling