This quote, or maybe ones similar too it, have been cited as the "basis" of our school system, and it's not inconceivable to me that people with those motives helped get our public schools off the ground.
But is there any evidence that such ideas are actually influential in today's schools? I'll bet that most teachers, if shown your quote, would retch.
Maybe I'm lucky (at least, lucky enough to be affluent), but I don't think that my kids are discouraged from being creative at school or in quasi-school activities such as their music lessons.
But is there any evidence that such ideas are actually influential in today's schools? I'll bet that most teachers, if shown your quote, would retch.
I assume you have read John Taylor Gatto's works before. In particular, you might be interested in his most recent: Weapons of Mass Instruction.
I don't know how exactly you would gauge their influence. It's certainly much more prevalent in certain countries (the USA and the major Western European forces, where the idea of modern compulsory schooling originated in the first place: Prussia), compared to say, Eastern European countries. The national psychology has always been different there, and after being ravaged by communism, the school system is quite chaotic and ineffectual, though the EU and other powers are trying to enact change (not necessarily for the better).
In any event, just look at how the classroom model of schooling works these days: intense focus on rote memorization, adherence to ritualistic and often obsolete or pointless standards, very bureaucratic operation and government, a fanatical concern with and faith in the grading system, standardized testing as the be-all-end-all of education and so on.
Then depending on the country, schools are used to instill nationalistic and other forms of propaganda, be it in the history textbooks or throughout the entire atmosphere of the classroom. Typically most states do this, though the exact level and subtlety depends on the individual nation.
The teachers would likely retch, but they're just as big of pawns as anybody else. They're not meant to know. They're told to serve a seemingly benevolent purpose in educating the nation's youth, and they must obviously comply with whatever they're given if they'd like to keep their job.
Prussia was an eastern European country. Most of it is now Poland, some of it Russia.
Modern education is less indoctrination than industrialized daycare.
Grading systems at least have some hope of removing some of the biases inherent other forms of judging people, which tend to come down to social markers (the way you speak, dress, who you know) and perpetuate elite prejudicial advantage. Similarly uniforms: they're a social equalizer for people from a poor background.
Grading systems (at least in their contemporary form) are no more effective, because the grader can be very easily manipulated or show bias themselves. That and it's just a very flat method of measuring progress. It's systemic, ruthlessly bureaucratic and typically within the context of standardized testing.
Social equalization was no doubt one of the motivations behind uniforms, though it's also likely a symbolic tool to foster groupthink and a superficial cloak of egalitarianism. There's many different ways to show your influence and being of a higher class than through mere clothing.
But is there any evidence that such ideas are actually influential in today's schools? I'll bet that most teachers, if shown your quote, would retch.
Maybe I'm lucky (at least, lucky enough to be affluent), but I don't think that my kids are discouraged from being creative at school or in quasi-school activities such as their music lessons.