John Taylor Gatto’s Dumbing Us Down: A collection the establishment doesn’t want you to read

I first crossed John Taylor Gatto’s work when I read the essay, I Quit, I Think. In it, Gatto, a former government school teacher, chastised the state of public education. Since that essay, little has changed in the realm of government schooling, something that one can provide a sound argument is a propaganda machine as opposed to an institution that educates.

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This nonfiction collection of speeches is one of many that serves as some backdrop for my upcoming young adult libertarian fiction series, Arcane Elemental Academy. While that work tells a compelling tale inspired loosely by Harry Potter, the underlying story is what makes it so rewarding.

And it challenges much of what Gatto himself is challenging in Dumbing Us Down. For one, he talks a lot about the bell system, and how it can be structured to teach kids that nothing they do in school is important. Harkening back to my own school days, I couldn’t agree more.

Just a few examples regarding the bell system from my own school days

Anything, such as a specific class, for example, that I saw value in, it was always disheartening to know I’d be there for a finite time, no longer than 75 minutes. I remember my tenth-grade biology class, taught by inarguably the best teacher in the school.

I couldn’t tell you the last time I found a science class so entertaining, but he made you want to stick around all afternoon. That’s if his pet tarantula didn’t freak you out. It was a stark contrast from physical science the year prior in 2005-06 when I struggled to even stay awake. Well, unless you anticipated the teacher’s reaction if someone was audacious enough to write ‘BRICKS’ across the board but that’s a tale for another time.

Or, my earth science class in 2004-05, in which the teacher constantly snapped at me to pay attention.

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But was this biology class any more important than college prep English? Algebra? To me, the answer was yes. To the school and its bell system, the answer was no.

I spent most of my twenties working as a personal trainer and I was pretty good at it. An itch to try and make a living as a writer forced me out and that was my own decision. I brought this up because back in high school, we had a class called weight training, another one I could’ve spent all day in.

Wouldn’t I have gotten so much more out of school if I was allowed to hang around the weight room, learning how to correct form and design programs for a few hours?

Chances are, I’d have graduated high school far ahead of a few others who took up the profession. And if you’re keeping score, don’t biological sciences kind of go hand-in-hand here?

A fringe rural high school well-known for its FFA program

This isn’t all about me, though. But I wanted to hammer in on the bell system because it was one part of Gatto’s work that jumped out at me more than anything else. This is also about the one common interest many I went to school with shared: Their love for rural agriculture and industrial arts.

That said, the school maintains a strong Future Farmers of America (FFA) presence, and probably always will. Naturally, agricultural shop (industrial arts) and agricultural science were a pair of classes in high demand.

I know dozens of people I went to school with who never fared too well in subjects like math, science, and language arts. But when you put them in a shop room or if they were busy learning something in the agricultural science field, they thrived.

Wouldn’t that have been a better outlet for them to spend most if not all of their school day in their elements? I can tell you that a lot of them went on to have careers that were, in many ways, at least somewhat related to the agricultural shop and science fields.

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It wasn’t my cup of tea, but if these classes were more than just electives that one would take for a maximum of two hours a day, they probably would’ve enjoyed school a little, or a lot, more.

Instead, the bell system limited their time in these classes. Although many of them now do something that’s at least somewhat related to these fields, it nonetheless diminished their level of importance when they had other subjects, not to mention homework in those subjects, to attend to.

Side note: Most of them, and myself for that matter, managed to get our homework done the following day when the teacher was talking. You just had to hope they spoke long enough before they asked you to hand in those assignments.

Another aspect that jumped out in Dumbing Us Down

I loved how Gatto recalled one student who was placed into the wrong reading class. It was a lower-level class in a school district where Gatto served as a substitute.

He noticed this individual was a gifted reader. When he brought this up to the school administrators, they retorted that the student wasn’t gifted, and they instead made excuses. The student, they claimed, read a few sections well, or they just memorized sections.

Still, after some insistence, the administration put this reader through a test. When the reader passed, the admin was forced to admit that yes, the reader was misplaced. This part also jumped out at me unlike any other, having witnessed quite a few instances myself while in school in which students ended up in classes they never should’ve been in.

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I was nearly misplaced myself. Remember that weight training story I told you earlier? I was initially barred from taking the class since I never played a sport in middle school. The class stated that for one to take weight training, playing a fall, winter, or spring sport was a prerequisite.

After my own insistence that I take the class and a little family intervention on my behalf - that old parents vs. the government school battle at its finest - I ended up in the class. And you don’t have to have been Nostradamus to predict that I excelled and absorbed the info like a sponge, many principles of which I still use to this day. Okay, so maybe government school did make itself somewhat useful, but only after I forced my way into weight training.

But what if they still denied me and I had to take gym class instead? My options for weight training would’ve been limited to my own weight set at home which I was dangerously close to “growing out of.” I likely wouldn’t have seen a weight room until I obtained my driver’s license in 2007 and sought out a local gym.

Tiny tidbits that warrant closer looks in Arcane

I liked how Gatto touched on the artificial environment that government schools (it’s what we call public schools, in case you’re not initiated) bring. That “one size fits few (if any) setting. Some play the game of school well, and they’re rewarded for it.

However, for this to happen, one must:

Question little, at most, of what the curriculum is instilling

Sit down at an uncomfortable desk, face the front, and give undivided attention when class begins

Speak only when spoken or given permission to or speak only in designated areas

Complete homework - which is where state intervention invades the home

React reflexively at the sound of a bell and hurry to another class

Interact only with peers you have permission to interact with

Follow any and other petty rules to a T

Stay in the building while changing classes

Our school went on perpetual “lockdown” starting in 2007-08

Don’t bring anything to drink while in class, even if the AC is nonexistent

I did a good job of hiding this from the teachers, but mistakes were made

Stop at your locker only at designated times

My school actually had a rule about this - only got caught once!

Remember that the hallways are a one-way street

Even if your next class is right up the next flight of stairs

Make sure you have a relative who’s involved in the district

My district was notorious for playing politics, which isn’t out of the ordinary

Don’t use the restroom without asking

My friend was denied access for this one and he responded in the most hilarious way - but he was only suspended for two days!

Something I wanted to bring to Arcane Elemental Academy involved challenging all of the above. While Yote Diamondback (her name is a nod to the old Arizona Coyotes and the Arizona Diamondbacks) had followed all of the above to that T prior to my upcoming Book I, The Arcane Prophecy, it’s not long until she finds out that there are better ways to go about learning.

Enter the Arcane Elemental Academy, which consists of 32 different schools under it, each of which is its own micro-school or learning pod, conforming to the learning styles and interests of students who choose to enroll in one of the respective schools.

Of course, Yote is in for the culture shock of her life. But it’s not long until Yote finds out that she’s so gifted, that she’s put into different cohorts of students, not all of whom are her own age. She’s also finding herself interacting with many teachers and people of different age groups, not all of latter are school employees, by the way. Another plus.

Thanks to work like Dumbing Us Down, it only increased my understanding for not just The Arcane Prophecy, but the entire Arcane Elemental Academy Series. And you can get your preview by downloading Arcane Awakenings, the series’ prequel novella, at no cost by clicking the image above.