"Schooled" has screened at alternative education conferences around the globe because it challenges the audience to reconsider their fundamental ideas about traditional education. It was also honored with a "Best Ensemble Performance" Nomination from The Method Fest in Los Angeles.
"Why do so many people have such little faith in their own parenting, and their neighbors' parenting, that they truly believe that without a unionized labor force inculcating children, nothing of value will ever be learned? Are we really at the point where the future of civilization is in the hands of the public school education monopoly? Maybe preschool should start right after birth so that parents have no adverse influence on their children. And, why do residents feel that I can make the decisions for their children that they would not allow to be made by members of their own family?"
By Ivan Illich.
"The pupil is thereby 'schooled' to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new... Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work."
John Taylor Gatto, film director Roland Legiardi-Laura, and The Odysseus Group welcome you to our Web site, which will offer you a new way to look at institutional schooling.
Perhaps the greatest of school's illusions is that the institution was launched by a group of kindly men and women who wanted to help the children of ordinary families—to level the playing field, so to speak.
"School sucks" is perhaps the most common phrase students use to describe their feelings about public education. Yet this seemingly bitter and reductive slogan is actually quite clever, and perhaps the most accurate and astute synopsis of the system I've ever heard. Here's why.
I was on a parenting bulletin board recently and read a post by a mother who was worried that her 4 1/2 year old did not know enough. "What should a 4 year old know?" she asked.
