55. Dr.
Caleb Gattegno, Expert: The Underground HIstory of American Education by John
Taylor Gatto from archive.org
Dr.
Caleb Gattegno, Expert
I began to
schoolteach as an engineer would, solving problems as they arose. Because
of my upbringing and because of
certain unresolved contradictions in my own character I had a great private need not just to
have a job but to have work that would allow me to build the unbuilt parts of myself, to give me competence
and
let me feel my life was one being
lived instead of it living me. I brought to those first years an intensity of watchfulness probably uncommon in those who
grow up untroubled. My own
deficiencies provided enough motivation to want to make something
worthwhile happen.
Had I remained a
problem-solver I would have drowned in life for sure, but a habit of mind that demands things in context
sensitized me to the culture of schooling as a major element in my work and that wariness eventually allowed me
to surmount it. The highest school
priorities are administrative coherence, student predictability, and
institutional stability; children
doing well or poorly are incidental to the main administrative mission. Hence teachers are often regarded as
instruments which respond best if handled like servants made to account for the silverware. In order to
give these vertical relationships
strength, the horizontal relationships among teachers — collegiality —
must be kept weak.
This
divide-and-conquer principle is true of any large system. The way it plays
itself out in the culture of
schooling is to bestow on some few individuals favor, on some few grief, and to approach the large middle with a
carrot in one hand, a stick in the other with these dismal examples illuminating the discourse. In simple terms,
some are bribed into loyalty, but
seldom so securely they become complacent; others sent despairing, but seldom without hope since a crumb might
eventually fall their way. Those whose
loyalties are purchased function as spies to report staff defiance or as
cheerleaders for new
initiatives.
I used to hear from
Granddad that a man's price for surrendering shows you the dirt floor of his soul. A short list of customary
teacher payoffs includes: 1) assignment to a room on the shady side of the building; 2) or one away from
playground noise; 3) a parking
permit; 4) the gift of a closet as a private office; 5) the tacit understanding
that one can solicit
administrative aid in disciplinary situations without being persecuted
afterwards; 6) first choice of
textbooks from the available supply in the book room; 7) access to the administrators' private photocopy
machine; 8) a set of black shades for your windows so the room can be sufficiently darkened to watch movies
comfortably; 9) privileged access
to media equipment so machines could be counted on to take over the
teaching a few days each week; 10)
assignment of a student teacher as a private clerk; 11) the right to go home on Friday a period or two early in
order to beat the weekend rush; 12) a program with first period (or first and second) free so the giftee
can sleep late while a friend or
friendly administrator clocks them in.
Many more
"deals" than this are available, extra pay for certain cushy
specialized jobs or paid
after-school duty are major perks. Thus is the ancient game of divide and
conquer played in school. How many
times I remember hearing, "Wake up, Gatto. Why should I bother? This is all a big joke. Nobody
cares. Keep the kids quiet, that's what a good teacher is. I have a life when I get home from this
sewer." Deals have a lot to do with that attitude and the best deals of all go to those who establish
themselves as experts. As did Dr.
Caleb Gattegno.
A now long-forgotten
Egyptian intellectual, Caleb Gattegno enjoyed a brief vogue in the 1960s as inventor of a reading system
based on the use of nonverbal color cues to aid learning. He was brought to the middle school where I worked
in 1969 to demonstrate
how his new system solved seemingly intractable problems. This famous
man's demonstration made such
impact on me that thirty years later I could lead you blindfolded to the basement room on West 77th Street where
twenty- five teachers and
administrators crammed into the rear lane of a classroom in order to be
touched by this magic. Keep in
mind it was only the demonstration I recall, I can't remember the idea at all. It had something to do with
color.
Even now I applaud
Gattegno's courage if nothing else. A stranger facing a new class is odds-on to be eaten alive, the
customary example of this situation is the hapless substitute. But in his favor another classroom advantage
worked besides his magical color
technology, the presence of a crowd of adults virtually guaranteed a peaceful
hour. Children are familiar with
adult-swarming through the twice-a-year- visitation days of parents. Everyone knows by some unvoiced
universal etiquette to be on best behavior when a concentration of strange adults appears in the back
of the room.
On the appointed day,
at the appointed hour, we all assembled to watch the great man put children through their paces. An air of
excitement filled the room. >From the publicity buildup a permanent revolution in our knowledge of reading
was soon to be put on display.
Finally, with a full retinue of foundation officers and big bureaucrats, Dr.
Caleb Gattegno entered the arena.
I can't precisely say
why what happened next happened. The simple truth is I wasn't paying much attention. But suddenly a
babble of shouting woke me. Looking up, I saw the visiting expert's face covered with blood! He was making
a beeline through the mob for the
door as if desperate to get there before he bled to death.
As I later pieced
together from eyewitness accounts, Dr. Gattegno had selected a student to cooperate with his demonstration, a
girl with a mind of her own. She didn't want to be the center of attention at that moment. When Gattegno
persisted her patience came to an
end. What I learned in a Harlem typing class years earlier, the famous
Egyptian intellectual now learned
in a school in the middle of some of the most expensive real estate on earth.
Almost immediately
after she raked her long fingernails down his well-educated cheeks, the doctor was off to the races,
exiting the room quickly, dashing up the staircase into Egyptian history. We were left milling about,
unable to stifle cynical remarks. What I
failed to hear, then or later, was a single word of sympathy for his
travail. Word of the incident
traveled quickly through the three-story building, the event was
postmortemed for days.
I should be ashamed
to say it, but I felt traces of amusement at his plight, at the money wasted, at the temporary chagrin of
important people. Not a word was ever said again about Gattegno again in my presence. I read a few pages of
his slim volume and found them
intelligent, but for some unaccountable reason I couldn't muster interest
enough to read on. Probably
because there isn't any trick to teaching children to read by very old- fashioned methods, which makes it
difficult to work up much enthusiasm for novelty. Truth to tell, the reading world doesn't
need a better mousetrap. If you look up his work in the library, I'd appreciate it if you'd drop me a
postcard explaining what his colorful
plan was all about.
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