Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling - Hardcover

Gatto, John Taylor

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9780865716315: Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865716315 ISBN 13: 9780865716315

Publisher: New Society Publishers, 2008

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“Gatto draws on thirty years in the classroom and many years of research as a school reformer. He puts forth his thesis with a rhetorical style that is passionate, logical, and laden with examples and illustrations.” ForeWord Magazine

“Weapons of Mass Instruction is probably his best yet. Gatto’s storytelling skill shines as he relates tales of real people who fled the school system and succeeded in spite of the popular wisdom that insists on diplomas, degrees and credentials. If you are just beginning to suspect there may be a problem with schooling (as opposed to educating as Gatto would say), then you’ll not likely find a better expose of the problem than Weapons of Mass Instruction.” Cathy Duffy Reviews

"In this book, the noisy gadfly of U.S. education takes up the question of damage done in the name of schooling. Again he touches on many of the same questions and finds the same answers. Gatto is a bold and compelling critic in a field defined by politic statements, and from the first pages of this book he takes even unwilling readers along with him. In Weapons of Mass Instruction, he speaks movingly to readers' deepest desires for an education that taps their talents and frees frustrated ambitions. It is a challenging and extraordinary book that is a must read for anyone navigating their way through the school system." - Ria Julien - Winnipeg Free Press

John Taylor Gatto’s Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of familiar schooling that cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a by-product of rote-memorization drills. Gatto’s earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, put that now-famous expression of the title into common use worldwide. Weapons of Mass Instruction promises to add another chilling metaphor to the brief against schooling.

Here is a demonstration that the harm school inflicts is quite rational and deliberate, following high-level political theories constructed by Plato, Calvin, Spinoza, Fichte, Darwin, Wundt, and others, which contend the term “education” is meaningless because humanity is strictly limited by necessities of biology, psychology, and theology. The real function of pedagogy is to render the common population manageable.

Realizing that goal demands that the young be conditioned to rely upon experts, remain divided from natural alliances, and accept disconnections from the experiences that create self-reliance and independence.

Escaping this trap requires a different way of growing up, one Gatto calls “open source learning.” In chapters such as “A Letter to Kristina, my Granddaughter”; “Fat Stanley”; and “Walkabout:London,” this different reality is illustrated.

John Taylor Gatto taught for thirty years in public schools before resigning from school-teaching in the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal during the year he was named New York State’s official Teacher of the Year. Since then, he has traveled three million miles lecturing on school reform.

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About the Author:

John Taylor Gatto was a teacher in New York for 26 years before quitting in 1991. He is a tireless advocate for school reform, has won numerous awards and his earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, has sold over 100,000 copies.

Review:

John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction, now available in paperback, focuses on mechanisms of traditional education which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a byproduct of rote-memorization drills. Gatto's earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, introduced the now-famous expression of the title into the common vernacular. Weapons of Mass Instruction adds another chilling metaphor to the brief against conventional schooling.

Gatto demonstrates that the harm school inflicts is rational and deliberate. The real function of pedagogy, he argues, is to render the common population manageable. To that end, young people must be conditioned to rely upon experts, to remain divided from natural alliances and to accept disconnections from their own lived experiences. They must at all costs be discouraged from developing self-reliance and independence.

Escaping this trap requires a strategy Gatto calls "open source learning" which imposes no artificial divisions between learning and life. Through this alternative approach our children can avoid being indoctrinated-only then can they achieve self-knowledge, good judgment, and courage.

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