It was never factually true that young people learn to read or do arithmetic primarily by being taught these things. These things are learned, but not really taught at all. Over-teaching interferes with learning, although the few who survive it may well come to imagine it was by an act of teaching.
Interpretation
Young people learn best through exploration rather than direct instruction.
John Taylor Gatto suggests that traditional teaching methods do not effectively facilitate true learning in young people. Instead, he argues that they often learn through experience and exploration, and that excessive teaching can hinder their ability to absorb knowledge organically. The challenge lies in recognizing that the best learning occurs outside structured educational frameworks.
In practice
In a discussion about modern educational practices, this quote can highlight the importance of experiential learning.
School presents daily exercises in dis-association. It forces unwelcome associations on most of its prisoners. It sets petty, meaningless competitions in motion on a daily basis, pitting potential associates against one another in contests for praise and other worthless prizes.
School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned.
Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest.
School is about learning to wait your turn, however long it takes to come, if ever. And how to submit with a show of enthusiasm to the judgment of strangers, even if they are wrong, even if your enthusiasm is phony.
It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to listen to a stranger reading poetry when you want to learn to construct buildings, or to sit with a stranger discussing the construction of buildings when you want to read poetry.
The primary goal of real education is not to deliver facts but to guide students to the truths that will allow them to take responsibility for their lives.
As Americans, we rightfully place tremendous value on having a free and independent press. Our role as journalists is to give voice to the voiceless, and hold our leaders and institutions accountable. But the circle is only completed when that information is consumed by a free-thinking and engaged audience.
The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.
Be convinced that, if man were able to reach the end without preparatory studies, such studies would not be preparatory but tiresome and utterly superfluous.
Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.
The foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form.
Everybody should be interested in access to primary and secondary education for everybody.
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