Adventure Quote by John Taylor Gatto
““Independent study, community service, adventures and experience, large doses of privacy and solitude, a thousand different apprenticeships — the one-day variety or longer — these are all powerful, cheap, and effective ways to start a real reform of schooling. But no large-scale reform is ever going to work to repair our damaged children and our damaged society until we force open the idea of “school” to include family as the main engine of education. If we use schooling to break children away from parents — and make no mistake, that has been the central function of schools since John Cotton announced it as the purpose of the Bay Colony schools in 1650 and Horace Mann announced it as the purpose of Massachusetts schools in 1850 — we’re going to continue to have the horror show we have right now.””
About This Quote
Source Book: The Underground History of American Education, John Taylor Gatto, 2009
Education reform must broaden beyond schools to include families, as schools historically separate children from parents, leading to societal problems.
In simple terms: Education should involve families, not just schools.
Key Takeaway
Reintegrate family into learning.
Themes
education
family
reform
history
society
Mood
concerned
critical
hopeful
Type
analytical
persuasive
When to use this quote
- home schooling
- community projects
- after‑school programs
- parent‑child learning
- policy advocacy
Key Concepts
social contract
institutional inertia
parental involvement
Questions to Reflect On
- How can families be supported to become effective educators?
- What structures can balance school and family roles?
A Different Perspective
Families may lack resources or expertise to replace school functions fully.
![“I've used the Phoenix Centrifuge to replicate what the body's going to go through on the flight up. I've also done some gravity tests with ZERO-G [a charter-flight service in Arlington, Va., that uses modified Boeing 727s to simulate weightlessness], which went great.” quote by Richard Branson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/aa1/richard-branson-256_adventure_i-ve-used-the-phoenix-centrifuge-to-repl_903.jpg)
