Quotes From John Taylor Gatto

From p.300 "The Underground History of American Education" "About Labor, the religious voice says that work is the only avenue to genuine self-respect. Work develops independence, self-reliance, resourcefulness. Work itself is a value, above a paycheck, above praise, above accomplishment. Work produces a spiritual reward unknown to the reinforcement schedules of behavioral psychologists like B.F. Skinner, but i you tackle it gladly, without resentment or avoidence, whether your digging a ditch or building a skyscraper, you'll find the key to yourself in work. If the secular aversion to work is to be rationalized as schools do, requiring only minimal effort from children, a horrifying problem is created for our entire society, one that thus far has proved incurable. I refer o the psycological, social, and spiritual anxieties that arise when people have no useful work to do. Phony work, no matter how well paid or praised, causes such great emotional distortions that the major efforts of our civilization will soon go into solving them, with no hint of any answer in sight. In the economy we have allowed to evolve, the real political dilemma everywhere is keeping poeple occupied. Jobs have to be invented by government agencies and corporations. Both employ millions and millions of people for which they have no real use. It's an inside secret among top-echelon management that should you need to cause a rise in stock value, this can be engineered by eliminating thousands of "useless" jobs; that is done regularly and, I would presume, cynically." Young men and woment during their brightest, most energetic years are kept from working or from being a part of the general society. This is done to keep them from aggrivating this delicate work situation, either by working too eagerly, as kids are prone to do, or by inventing their own work, which could cause shocks throughout the economy. This violation of the injunction to work which western spirituality imposed, has backed us into a corner from whic no authority has any idea how to extricate us. We cannot afford to let too many children really learn to work, as Amish children do, for fear they will discover its great secret:work isn't a curse, but a salvation.