individual,

Did you read Gatto's points above?

The object of the system is to create automatons - people who are unable to exercise, for the most part, autonomy, or to utilise their potential and capacity for creativity.

"National Service' and a "pro-slap policy" are merely extensions of the same model. Conformity and compulsion are the guiding principles - without a guiding context.

The system has failed in its ability to even recognise the intrinsic humanity of its youth...but the system wasn't designed to respect those things we claim to value - it was designed to create obedient workers and enthusiastic consumers.

Poirot, oh its so easy just to blame "the system".

If it was just "the system", you would not have the massive
variation in outcomes, which is what we can see.

There are young people today who are absolutaly thriving
and taking the opportunities which they have, making
their dreams happen.

Then we have another bunch blaming "the system".

One of the interesting things for me, living in the
same place for a fairly long time, is observing families,
how they raised their kids and how those kids are turning out.

Those kids who were spoiled rotten and given everything,
protected from any kind of trauma etc, are the ones that
have turned into duds.

Those who were given lots of love, but also lots of
discipline, not given life on a plate by their parents,
are the ones who are thriving.

The problem is the expectations of the spoiled brats,
and I can only blame their parents for that.

If you teach kids that life comes on a plate, that is
what they will expect from the world and then be amazed,
when it simply ain't like that.

Yabby,

I agree with you.

Bur it's the powers that be - the reigning system that encourages parents to shower their kids with goodies, just as it encourages people to submit to their own vanity and constantly reward themselves with "stuff".

Look no further than the "system" for the reasons behind the materialistic perversion of youth and its potential..."life on a plate" is the result of fortunate society which exercises very little discrimination when it comes to human nature.

Poirot,

Surely modern education is almost the total inverse of your quoted Gatto's 7 lessons? (At least here in Aus, if not univerally in the West?) If not, the 'Occupy' participants must have failed to be 'cloned'? (Or should we consider them the latest equivalent of the 'free love' or 'flower power' movements, and latent tree-huggers - custodians of the social conscience, moved by an irresistible 'natural' guiding compass perhaps?)

Education (or a lack of it) has failed to deter the multitude of demonstrators in Athens, London and the middle east - so awakening to the deceit and irresponsibilities of national leadership can produce explosive repercussions. (And sheep become wolves.)

We should not be blaming youth, or any lack of their adequate preparation to face the challenges of the modern world, but rather the failure of governments and leaders to provide a stable and constructive employment and career environment - from cradle to grave. Free market politics and industry has much to answer for - and China has found its measure. We need to find a better way to foster our national interests, to harness and laud the potentials and exuberance of current and future generations of youth. Theirs IS our future - as a free, vibrant and successful society. We do owe them a future, for on their shoulders rests the future of the world.

Saltpetre,

I'm "not" blaming our youth.

The inverse of Gatto's "lessons"?
Did you read them?
Do they ring true?
Gatto was an "award winning" teacher because he adhered to these lessons.

But it's useless to ramble on here. It's so unusual for anyone nurtured in and saturated by the status quo to think outside the square.

"..to harness and laud the potentials and exuberance of current and future generations of youth..."

The last word from Gatto:

"With lessons like the ones I teach day after day it should be little wonder we have a real national crisis, the nature of which is very different from that proclaimed by national media. Young people are indifferent to the adult world and to the future, indifferent to almost everything except the diversion of toys and violence. Rich or poor, school children who face the twenty-first century cannot concentrate on anything for very long; they have a poor sense of time past and time to come. They are mistrustful of intimacy like the children of divorce they really are (for we have divorced them from significant parental attention); they hate solitude, are cruel, materialistic, dependent, passive, violent, timid in the face of the unexpected, addicted to distraction....all the peripheral tendencies of childhood are nourished and magnified....."

I read and understood Gatto's points, Poirot. Excellent.
But as you say, "it's useless to ramble on here. It's so unusual for anyone nurtured in and saturated by the status quo to think outside the square".
Ain't that the truth!