On education and recognizing our shared humanity

I read an article some time ago in Yes! Magazine called "Universal Education" by John Taylor Gatto, who during his teaching career was named NYC Teacher of the Year and New York State Teacher of the Year for his work in New York public schools. He had a number of memorable things in the article, but two quotes stood out for me.

One was from the privately funded Rockefeller General Education Board:

In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions fade from their minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk.

We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply.

The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.

From the article:

Another insider of modern schooling, H.H. Goddard, chair of psychology at Princeton, said in 1920 that government schooling is “the perfect organization of the hive.” He wrote that standardized testing would cause the lower classes to face their biological inferiority (sort of like wearing a public dunce cap), which would discourage their reproduction.

Wow! The foundations of universal education in America--not about helping children fulfill their potential as human beings, but about molding people into grateful workers. Standardized testing--not about helping us all measure up, but about helping us know how undeserving most of us are for the good things in life.

I'm not entirely sure how we break out of this trap we're all in, that tells us that we more or less get what we deserve, regardless of what the social structures are that surround us. As for me, I want to start by doing my best to see all the human beings around me--to see them, to acknowledge them as part of my tribe. It isn't always easy. It's much easier to just dismiss some people as evil or bad, selfish, or stupid. But I think that this is an essential part of the problem, and it is so pernicious it rarely fails to affect any of us. We blame the selfish and evil Republicans. They blame the godless bleeding heart liberals. We blame the rich. They blame the poor. But if I see you, and I acknowledge you as someone who shares a beating human heart just like mine, then I can't exploit you, and neither can I just write you off as evil and bad and utterly unlike myself. We all fail. We mostly get back up. We try to love. We don't always know how. Even as I'm writing this, I'm using "us" and "them". But I think we need to find our way to "we" to get to a world that really works. Maybe even to keep a world in which human beings can live.

I read somewhere recently about our "fragile" planet. Our planet is not fragile. It was in many ways better off without us and it will be OK long after we're gone. We need to save an Earth that is inhabitable for us. And I think we'll need to pull together to do that. As for me, I will start by opening my eyes to see those around me, to recognize the people I see in all their wonderful and varied humanity--whether they think like I do or not. I don't know if it will do too much. I doubt it will change the whole world. But it will change me. And maybe that's all we really get to do, anyhow. If nothing else, it's a start.

Link:
Universal Education by John Taylor Gatto