John Gatto: Teacher of the Year Acceptance Speech

Posted on February 26th, 2002 in Otherways Magazine, Resources

The following is the text of a speech by John Taylor Gatto accepting the New York City Teacher of the Year Award on January 31, 1990. It is reprinted from the Iowa State Newsletter.

I accept this award on behalf of all the fine teachers I’ve known over the years who’ve struggled to make their transactions with children honourable ones, men and women who are never complacent, always questioning, always wrestling to define and redefine endlessly what the word “education” should mean. A Teacher of the Year is not the best teacher around, those people are too quiet to be easily uncovered, but he is a standard-bearer, symbolic of these private people who spend their lives gladly in the service of children. This is their award as well as mine.

John Taylor Gatto: I may be a teacher, but I’m not an educator

Posted on February 25th, 2002 in Otherways Magazine, Resources

From The Wall Street Journal, July 25, 1991
By John Taylor Gatto

I’ve taught public school for 26 years but I just can’t do it anymore. For years I asked the local school board and superintendent to let me teach a curriculum that doesn’t hurt kids, but they had other fish to fry. So I’m going to quit, I think.

I’ve come slowly to understand what it is I really teach: A curriculum of confusion, class position, arbitrary justice, vulgarity, rudeness, disrespect for privacy, indifference to quality, and utter dependency. I teach how to fit into a world I don’t want to live in.

I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t train children to wait to be told what to do; I can’t train people to drop what they are doing when a bell sounds; I can’t persuade children to feel some justice in their class placement when there isn’t any, and I can’t persuade children to believe teachers have valuable secrets they can acquire by becoming our disciples. That isn’t true.

I Can Breathe Again - My Children Finally Learned To Read

Posted on February 25th, 2002 in Learning to Read, Otherways Magazine, Resources

by Carol Rice

Waiting to Exhale was such an inspiring book. In fact, just its title inspires me the most. Have you ever caught yourself “waiting to exhale”? I have spent so much of my life holding my breath. Raising my children has certainly been one of those situations. For me, every decision in parenting had to be thoroughly researched and then deliberated and discussed. And once the decision was made, I found myself holding my breath, worrying about how it would turn out. One of the most deliberated decisions I made for my kids was the education decision - whether to homeschool or not, and how to homeschool. It wasn’t a decision made once and then laid to rest, either. It was a decision deliberated daily for years. How much should I push them, how much should I let them be, what should I teach them and how and when? I tried many different approaches from often widely opposing viewpoints. And as I swung madly about, my kids just seemed to go about their business, unaware of the conundrums I faced.

Carol answers a question about Burnout

Posted on February 25th, 2002 in Otherways Magazine, Problems

If you don’t want to imprison your children in a school, why are you imprisoning all of you in your own home?

I’ve been homeschooling for 10 years now. I have five children ages 18-3years. My question is, how do I effectively homeschool when I no longer have the heart for it? I am burnt out, tired and just plain bored of it. Yet, my conscience won’t allow me to imprison my precious children in the typical school setting.

Burnout is a common concern among homeschoolers who try to do school at home. (Note: This family uses a fairly strict Christian curriculum.) In fact, the only homeschoolers I’ve heard complain of burnout are those who are using a “school in a box” curriculum along with a strict daily schedule. It’s probably time to climb out of the box.