Weapons of Mass Instruction

A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling

John Taylor Gatto

• Publisher: New Society Publishers
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781550924244
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The transformation of schooling from a twelve-year jail sentence to freedom to learn.

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.

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• PROLOGUE: AGAINST SCHOOL
• 1 EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SCHOOLS IS WRONG
• 2 WALKABOUT: LONDON
• 3 FAT STANLEY AND THE LANCASTER AMISH
• 4 DAVID SARNOFF’S CLASSROOM
• 5 HECTOR ISN’T THE PROBLEM
• 6 THE CAMINO DE SANTIAGO
• 7 WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION
• 8 WHAT IS EDUCATION?
• 9 A LETTER TO MY GRANDDAUGHTER ABOUT DARTMOUTH
• 10 INCIDENT AT HIGHLAND HIGH
• AFTERWORD
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR