...and look where it got the Germans

According to John Taylor Gatto, a long-time public school teacher (in fact, Teacher of the Year for both New York City and New York State), we got our school system from the Prussians, back in the 19th century.

Gatto writes:

So the world got compulsion schooling at the end of a state bayonet for the first time in human history; modern forced schooling started in Prussia in 1819 with a clear vision of what centralized schools could deliver:

1. Obedient soldiers to the army;
2. Obedient workers to the mines;
3. Well subordinated civil servants to government;
4. Well subordinated clerks to industry
5. Citizens who thought alike about major issues.

Schools should create an artificial national consensus on matters that had been worked out in advance by leading German families and the head of institutions. Schools should create unity among all the German states, eventually unifying them into Greater Prussia.

Wealthy children did not attend Prussia's public schools, of course. But the 93% of the population who did attend them learned, for instance, to raise their hand and ask permission before asking a question. Studying was interrupted constantly by horns, at which point students switched to another subject-- a process deliberately designed to keep students from getting ahead, reading on their own, or studying independently. They were all taught the same history and the same concept of the Prussian nation to foster social cohesion. Gatto again:

There were many more techniques of training, but all were built around the premise that isolation from first-hand information, and fragmentation of the abstract information presented by teachers, would result in obedient and subordinate graduates, properly respectful of arbitrary orders. "Lesser" men would be unable to interfere with policy makers because, while they could still complain, they could not manage sustained or comprehensive thought.

Prussian industry boomed. I've always had the sense that the German people were peculiarly industrious, but I thought maybe they'd gotten a larger dose of the Protestant work ethic, or who knows, maybe it's in the Teutonic genes? I had no idea it resulted from the early (apparently, the first) use of state-controlled compulsory schooling.

Given the economic benefits of rigid, compulsory schooling, I guess it's no surprise it caught the attention of wealthy Americans. Gatto explains how scholars educated in Prussia, or businessmen who visited the country, began arguing for a similar school system in the US.

I have a lot more to say in a future post about the boon to corporations which public schools have historically represented. Rockefeller and his ilk donated heavily to the public schools and wielded their influence, emphasizing the scientific management (and careful avoidance of "over-education") of those little cogs in the machine which you and I know as our children. But to focus on a more serious drawback of Prussian-style schooling, as Gatto points out:

One of the ... by-products of Prussian schooling turned out to be the two most devastating wars of modern history. Erich Maria Ramarque, in his classic "All Quiet on the Wester Front" tells us that the First World War was caused by the tricks of schoolmasters, and the famous Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that the Second World War was the inevitable product of good schooling.

It's important to underline that Bonhoeffer meant that literally, not metaphorically--schooling after the Prussian fashion removes the ability of the mind to think for itself. It teaches people to wait for a teacher to tell them what to do and if what they have done is good or bad. Prussian teaching paralyses the moral will as well as the intellect.

Someone told me recently that there are only two countries in the world who begin their (government-run) school day with a pledge of allegiance to the State, and they are the United States and North Korea. I haven't verified this-- it seems unlikely to me that there is not some such pledge in Chinese schools-- but you can see the kind of company we keep. I mean really, the Pledge is a bit... er, Prussian, is it not?

As for promoting social homogeneity, consider the emphasis on student appearance. Students have been suspended from school for the following:

• wearing a shirt that read "Barbie is a lesbian" (link)
• wearing a Pepsi shirt on "Coke Day" (link)
• having a nose stud (link)
• wearing a Korn t-shirt (link)
• wearing a White Zombie t-shirt (link)
  
• wearing an "Anarchy" t-shirt (link)
• wearing hijab (link)
• wearing an anti-gay t-shirt (link)
• wearing a pro-gay t-shirt (link)
• wearing a shirt reading "redneck sports fan" (link)
• wearing a trenchcoat (link)
• wearing a shirt bearing a photo of an M-16 (link)
• draping the Columbian flag over a backpack (link)
• wearing a vegan sweatshirt (link)
• wearing a Wiccan pentagram (link)
• wearing jeans with holes in them (link)
• wearing the Sikh turban (link)
• having copper-colored hair (link)
• having pink hair (link)
• having blue hair (link)

Some of these suspensions were overturned after the schools were contacted by the ACLU or after lawsuits found in favor of first amendment rights. But the vast majority of suspensions for non-conforming appearance never make it into the news, so the above list is the tiny tip of the iceburg.

Once I knew about the creepy origins of our style of public schooling, things like the Pledge, the dress code, and everyone responding in unison to the sound of a bell started to seem a bit frightening.

On the last day my daughter attended preschool, I was there for the last 15 minutes, during which the boy who was "leader" that day got to show something he'd brought in. He held up a toy helicopter, said something about it, and then drew little laminated nametags out of a can. If your name got drawn, you asked a question about the helicopter-- whether you wanted to or not. Three names were drawn, and if yours wasn't one of them, you never got to ask your question at all. The more I think about this the more bizarre I find it to be. They are teaching children that asking a question is a privilege bestowed not merely by an authority but actually at random. Meanwhile the best questions most often go unasked. What is the point of the names in the can? I can't think of any, except to teach them: Don't ask questions unless you're told to ask a question.

Other things that occurred were: they danced in unison to prescribed steps, they were gently admonished to stay silent, and they lined up at the door in the order in which the teacher tapped them. Gives me a chill down my spine, and makes me have serious doubts about that awful word, "socialization." It's like when you hear someone talking about "school readiness" and what they mean is a kid who knows how to sit down, shut up, and ask permission before peeing.

Remember the Gatto quote above: "Lesser" men would be unable to interfere with policy makers because, while they could still complain, they could not manage sustained or comprehensive thought.

It seems to have been fairly effective. 35% of publicly schooled adults say that politics and government are too complicated to understand. Among homeschool graduates, only 4% agree. While 76% of homeschoolers aged 18 to 24 have voted in the past 5 years, only 29% of the general 18-to-24 population have voted. (See here for details.)

All this makes for a dangerous situation. Sometimes I feel like one more 9.11 and it's all over, it's martial law and sealed borders and anti-sedition laws all over again. And I have to wonder what role the public schools have played in making us a population of "sheeple," as they say.