EricHoefler.com

While preparing for my next class session, I re-read John Taylor Gatto’s 1990 “New York City Teacher of the Year” acceptance speech. It’s worth re-reading regularly. It angers, frustrates, depresses, and inspires me. It scares me, too … scared for myself, for our students, for our future. I think we can now replace “television” in this speech with “entertainment” in general, meaning the constant barrage of on-demand entertainment through TV, film, music, and the internet.

Some of the best quotes:

First we need a ferocious national debate that doesn’t quit, day after day, year after year. We need to scream and argue about this school thing until it is fixed or broken beyond repair, one or the other.

… self-knowledge is the only basis of true knowledge …

Right now we are taking all the time from our children that they need to develop self-knowledge. That has to stop. We have to invent school experiences that give a lot of that time back, we need to trust children from a very early age with independent study, perhaps arranged in school but which takes place away from the institutional setting. We need to invent curriculum where each kid has a chance to develop private uniqueness and self-reliance.

… as they gain self-knowledge they’ll also become self-teachers – and only self-teaching has any lasting value.

We’ve got to give kids independent time right away because that is the key to self-knowledge, and we must re-involve them with the real world as fast as possible so that the independent time can be spent on something other than more abstraction.

… no large-scale reform is ever going to work to repair our damaged children and our damaged society until we force the idea of “school” open – to include family as the main engine of education …

Experts in education have never been right, their “solutions” are expensive, self-serving, and always involve further centralization. Enough. Time for a return to democracy, individuality, and family.

The worst part? It’s been 17 years … he’s still right, not much has changed, and what change has happened has only made things worse.