I read this phenomenal essay, by John Taylor Gatto recently, about the unspoken “lessons” being imparted upon kids by the modern, institutionalized school system. Example:
3. INDIFFERENCE
The third lesson I teach kids is indifference. I teach children not to care about anything too much, even though they want to make it appear that they do. How I do this is very subtle. I do it by demanding that they become totally involved in my lessons, jumping up and down in their seats with anticipation, competing vigorously with each other for my favor. It’s heartwarming when they do that; it impresses everyone, even me. When I’m at my best I plan lessons very carefully in order to produce this show of enthusiasm. But when the bell rings I insist that they stop whatever it is that we’ve been working on and proceed quickly to the next work station. They must turn on and off like a light switch. Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of. Students never have a complete experience except on the installment plan.
Indeed, the lesson of the bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? Years of bells will condition all but the strongest to a world that can no longer offer important work to do. Bells are the secret logic of schooltime; their logic is inexorable. Bells destroy the past and future, converting every interval into a sameness, as the abstraction of a map renders every living mountain and river the same, even though they are not. Bells inoculate each undertaking with indifference.
I also found a great interview with him, in the FastCompany archives. The interview was conducted by the author Daniel Pink, which pleases me as it provides an efficient segue into this one mp3 that I have been meaning to post for forever.
So Daniel Pink wrote this book (A Whole New Mind) that I saw at the Borders in Santa Cruz when I was out here interviewing at Apple last year. It looked interesting, but it was a hardcover, so I thought maybe I’d wait until it came out in paperback, and pick it up then, as it would be cheaper. (Library? What’s that? =) To remind myself about it, I subscribed to the RSS feed for the author’s blog, since I figured he’d probably make a post about the paperback release when it happened. So eventually it did come out in paperback, but I ended up losing interest slightly, and not actually buying it. I did stay subscribed to the RSS feed however, and was rewarded one day when this was posted:
Wyatt Jackson - A Whole New Mind Rap
Apparently this guy Wyatt Jackson, “a Boston-based hip-hop artist and entrepreneur,” *had* actually read the book, and felt compelled to make a song about it. But seriously though, the John Taylor Gatto essay and interview are both flat-out genius, and quite inspirational reads. I had always felt some sort of vaguely defined ill will or um… what’s the word I’m looking for here? Bitter Contempt, let’s say… towards school in general, and while I’m the first to admit that much of that probably follows from my inherent desire to just not get up first thing in the morning, Gatto’s theories have helped to clarify and focus a lot of the *other* beefs that I had (and still have) with K-12, as we know it.
…And with regards to the laziness issue, I’m not entirely taking responsibility for that either. Or, to put it another way, I’m prouder than ever to be an Idler, after reading some of the essays in The Idler’s Companion. It serves as a nice counter-point to Gatto’s stuff, as it sets up Idling, or the “stealing” of time from the grips of industry and efficiency, as the natural reaction to the type of punch-clock society that institutional schooling helps create.
Included are dozens of essays and selections from the larger works of various authors, which all proclaim the pleasure and virtue of loafing about, reading and/or playing pinball. Societies without adequately developed concepts of leisure and play, we are reminded, are the ones that most often subject themselves to violent and impersonal systems of hierarchy and control. The collection is right there with Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy in terms of anthologies, and is well worth the £7.50 and interminable wait (faster maybe in the UK?) for delivery. Mine did come with a hand-written thank-you note though, so I can’t really complain. If anyone’s entitled to take their sweet time with shipping, it’s these guys, as far as I’m concerned. =)
