Book Reviews

$9.95 paperback Reviewed by Hannah B. Lapp I f John Taylor Gatto were introducing his book to us, he'd do us the favor of introducing himself first. In order to do justice to Mr. Gatto and his eye-opening book, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Cur riculum of Compulsory Schooling, I must offer first of all a few words on the author himself. Mr. Gatto taught for 26 years in New York City public schools, a number of these years in Harlem and Spanish Harlem. But his "heart and habit," he asserts in his "Bio graphical Note," are still in Monongahela, the small riverside town in Pennsylvania where he spent his early years. He describes the town as "an altogether wonderful place to grow up, even to grow up poor, " a place where "independence, toughness, and self reliance were honored," and where, he says, he "learned to teach from being taught by everyone in town." A year and a half ago, the public school system lost Mr. Gatto, and along with him it lost much of the smokescreen that has enabled it to remain so remarkably unchal lenged over the years. Just after receiving the 1991 New York State Teacher of the Year Award, Mr. Gatto announced he was going to quit because he didn't want to "hurt" kids anymore. "Government schooling," he charged, "kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents. "

The publishers of Dumbing Us Down call Gatto's ideas about education "not easily 79 pigeon-holed," which is an accurate obser vation. Who else would stand up and tell us that schooling as we know it is not educa tion, but a "twelve-year jail sentence where bad, habits are the only curriculum truly learned"? According to Gatto's observations, the seven lessons taught in public schools from Harlem to Hollywood Hills, are these: 1. Confusion (The natural order of real life is violated by heaping disconnected facts on students.) 2. Class position (Children are locked together into categories where the lesson is that "everyone has a proper place in the pyramid. ") 3. Indifference (Inflexible school regimens deprive children of complete experiences.) 4. Emotional dependency (Kids are taught to surrender their individuality to a "predestined chain of command. ") 5. Intellectual dependency (One of the biggest lessons schools teach is conformity rather than curiosity.) 6. Provisional self-esteem (' 'The lesson of report cards, grades, and tests, is that children should not trust themselves or their parents, but should instead rely on the evaluation of certified officials.") 7. One can't hide (Schooling and home work assignments deny children privacy and free time in which to learn from parents, from exploration, or from community.) He also contends that many of our mod ern society's excesses, including the growth of commercial entertainment, such as tele vision, the dependence on experts, and even parts of our economic structure (prepared food industries, for example) would wither once people started truly thinking and acting for themselves. The thought of people doing more things for themselves is exciting, but I hope Gatto doesn't mean to say that work ing for pay is always dependency. And although it's true that most individuals would benefit from diversifying their skills, Gatto would have to admit that highly spe cialized professions also have their place in a prosperous society.

The best thing about Gatto is he doesn't seek to impose his version of desirable 80 THE FREEMAN • FEBRUARY 1993 education on anyone else. Neither can he be accused of being anti-civilization, and cer tainly not anti-education. He speaks admir ingly of early America's prosperity (and literacy) through individual initiative, and even offers ideas toward the revival of better schools and communities in our current day. As for solutions to the state of our edu cational system, Gatto at one point advo cates a voucher, or school choice system, which would still be sadly deficient because of its dependence on government funds. His real thrust, though, comes out beautifully on page 79: "Break up these institutional schools, decertify teaching, let anyone who has a mind to teach bid for customers, privatize this whole business-trust the free market system. I know it's easier to say than do, but what other choice do we have?"

Sure, it's a radical proposal, and Gatto doubtless has his enemies. However, there's a part of everyone of us that thrills to his appeal to unleash the infinite possi bilities within the human mind. And most of us can't help asking ourselves questions, such as, "Where did we ever get the idea that education means just the same thing to one person as it does to another?" Even more relevant: "How did we ever come to accept that anyone group's version of education should be forcibly imposed on every American child?" Reading Dumbing Us Down with an in quisitive mind is a whale of a learning experience, and it doesn't take long to do. The book is only 120 pages, everyone of them delightfully original. 0 Hannah Lapp is a freelance writer who lives in Cassadaga, New York. Back in print! Anything That's Peaceful The Case for the Free Market by LeonardE. Read A nythingThat's Peacefulwas written in 1964, 18 years after Leonard Read established The Foundation for Economic Education. The book, hailed by many as Leonard Read's best, is the fruit of years of experience in lecturing and writing on the free market and related institutions.

"By my title, 'Anything That's Peaceful,'" Mr. Read explains, "I mean let anyone do anything he pleases that's peaceful or creative; let there be no organized restraint against anything but fraud, violence, misrepresentation, predation; let anyone deliver mail or educate or preach his religion or whatever, so long as it's peaceful." Intriguing chapter titles such as "Only God Can Make a Tree - or a Pencil," "The Most Important Discovery in Economics," and ''The Greatest Computer on Earth" invite the reader to accompany Leonard Read on his exploration of the wonders of freedom. This handsome new edition, with a foreword by Hans F. Sennholz, is a perfect present. 256 pages, indexed, paperback $10.95 (10 copies or more shipped to a single address, $8.00 each) IDEASON LIBERTY 84 Ethics and Business Edmund A. Opitz In contemporary America, the phrase "ethical businessman" has become a contradiction in terms.