“Schooling is an attempt to find one right way to educate everyone.”

That is a quote from John Taylor Gatto. Mr. Gatto is critical of compulsory education. He says it is a means of teaching people to keep themselves in their place.

John Taylor Gatto taught over 29 years in the public school system and he was named New York City’s Teacher of the Year in 1989, 1990 and 1991. He was also New York State’s Teacher of the Year in 1991.In 1991, he wrote a letter announcing his retirement saying that he no longer wanted to “hurt kids to make a living.” One professor of education said that Gatto’s books are “one-sided and hyperbolic, [but] not inaccurate.”

I had the privilege of hearing John Taylor Gatto speak at one of Rhea Perry’s Entrepreneur Days. It was wonderful hearing his words in person. I wish I could have just sat down and visited with him. What a giant of a man!

He’s an American retired school teacher who has authored several books on education such as Dumbing Us Down, The Exhausted School, A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling, The Underground History of American Education and Weapons of Mass Instruction.

Listen for yourself and let me know what you think.