John Taylor Gatto: School Should Prepare Kids for More Than School

John Taylor Gatto's claim that schooling can be irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet sounds outrageous until you ask what school repeatedly prepares a child to do. Sit still, follow directions, complete work somebody else assigned, and wait to be told whether it is correct. You can become extremely good at that sequence without getting much practice beginning something worthwhile. Then we send the graduate into the world and demand initiative. Where exactly were they supposed to acquire it?

The habit is built through ordinary decisions. Somebody else chooses the question, decides how long it deserves, and determines what counts as a finished answer. The student learns that proceeding without approval can be riskier than doing nothing. Even a bright, hardworking kid can become skilled at discovering what the adult wants instead of deciding what the situation needs. That is a consequential education in dependence, whatever subjects appear on the timetable.

Imagine a student notices that a community notice board is confusing. Old events remain posted, nobody can tell what is current, and useful information gets buried. There is no worksheet explaining how to improve it. The student has to ask who uses it, which problem matters most, and what a workable change would look like. They are beginning with something that needs judgment before it can be turned into an assignment.

Their first proposal might be a beautifully designed replacement that nobody has time to update. Now the attractive answer has failed against a practical constraint. They need to distinguish making the board clearer today from keeping it useful next month. That could lead to a simpler layout, dates that are easy to inspect, or an agreed responsibility for removing old notices. The quality of the answer depends on understanding the people and the task, not guessing which design the teacher will praise.

There is writing in the proposal, observation in discovering how the board is used, and reasoning in comparing possible solutions. The adult can teach those things without supplying every decision. Ask what evidence supports the diagnosis or who would maintain the new arrangement. A useful question improves the learner's judgment while leaving them responsible for using it. That is a different relationship from quietly steering the child toward the answer you planned all along.

Taking initiative does not mean guessing confidently about things you do not understand. It includes recognizing what information is missing and finding somebody who knows more. In the notice-board example, asking its users is part of competent action. Education should make that move ordinary. A young person ought to know how to begin an unfamiliar undertaking, including how to seek help, rather than regarding uncertainty as a reason to wait indefinitely for instructions.

Gatto's criticism of schooling reaches beyond whether the day is enjoyable. We can invent a lively project and still prescribe every decision that makes it work. The child designs the board we already decided was needed, gathers the information we already selected, and reports the conclusion we were waiting for. They have been busy, but the most consequential part of the undertaking still belonged to somebody else.

Real initiative begins earlier, in noticing that the current arrangement need not be accepted. It continues through the less glamorous discovery that your beautiful proposal creates a maintenance problem. I want a young person to acquire that whole relationship to the world: something could be better, I can try to improve it, and reality may oblige me to think again. More school can make a person better at school. Education ought to give them somewhere else to go.