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“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
“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
“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
Product Description
John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of familiar schooling which 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 the now-famous expression of the title in 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 the young be conditioned to rely upon experts, conditioned to remain divided from natural alliances, conditioned to accept disconnections from the experiences, which 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.
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Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
You Don't Want it to be True, but Your Gut Says It Is,
By Linda Mehus-Barber (Crescent Beach, B.C.) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Weapons Of Mass Instruction (Hardcover)
If you care about education, then "Weapons of Mass Instruction" is a book that will leave you unsettled and wanting desperately to engage in a discussion with someone else who has read it. John Taylor Gatto convincingly details the history behind the plight of American education, and if what he says is true, then reform isn't the answer, for the whole system is broken beyond repair. He eloquently describes the difference between education and schooling--claiming that for decades, the public school system in America has been simply "schooling" young people rather than educating them. Students are not being taught logic or how to think critically (even though we pay lip service to these skills), and they are leaving 12+ years of school programmed only as consumers to feed the insatiable hunger of corporate America. He cites numerous examples of individuals who have gone on to do great things after they dropped out of formal school, and points out that there are a lot of Ph.D graduates who are flipping hamburgers.He discusses the problems inherent in the "artificial extension of childhood," and attributes many of America's social problems (e.g. drug use, violence, crime, depression, aimlessness) to cookie-cutter education and the refusal to challenge young people to take on greater responsiblity at an early age. Once one has digested the precepts presented, there is a keen awareness that the environment of the 18th and 19th centuries that allowed America to become a beacon of light to the world no longer exists. Although "Weapons of Mass Instruction" is a critique of the American school system, educators in other Western World countries would do well to read it and take warning. Most of us are on the same path--the USA is just a bit further into the muck and the mire.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Poorly edited rehash of his previous work...,
By
This review is from: Weapons Of Mass Instruction (Hardcover)
I have read most of Gatto's writings and this is not on eof his best. This book is a collection of some of his previous writings with a few new thoughts and stories added.If you want a more thorough treatment of the subject, look for An Underground History of American Education by Gatto. If you want a better-edited short discussion along these lines, I recommend Dumbing Us Down by the same author.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars (47 customer reviews) 73 of 80 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reclaim your mind - Read this book!!,
By Andrea Mcclerren - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Weapons Of Mass Instruction (Hardcover)
This book and Gatto's earlier work, "Dumbing Us Down", were life-changing reads for me and my wife.We have been set free to live our own lives. We are going to let our children grow up with that freedom and take their own education. Largely due to this book I have decided to aggressively further my own education in order to live a truly fulfilling life and make a positive contribution to my country. I discovered, as I hope you do, that MIT has made their entire undergrad/grad program online FREE-FOR-ALL. Just Google "MIT OPEN". 59 of 64 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bravo, Mr. Gatto.,
By Matthew Kowalski - Published on Amazon.com
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This review is from: Weapons Of Mass Instruction (Hardcover)
In this book, John Taylor Gatto rips the sheep's clothing off of the ravenous wolf that is government run schooling. The structure of schooling in America is shown to be an old Prussian model that is used to churn out consumers and dumb-down the general population. Read what the pioneers of modern schooling said in their own words...it's chilling.One example - William Torrey Harris, US Commissioner of Education from 1889-1906: "Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual..." (from p. 13) 87 of 100 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing book- A must read for anyone concerned for the future of our nation/,
By Emily Winters - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Weapons Of Mass Instruction (Hardcover)
I received this book yesterday afternoon. Christmas Eve day was spent reading this book, highlighting it, writing notes and reading aloud chunks of it to my home educated children.And because it is Christmas Eve I will keep this review short. (Even though despite the holiday, I'd rather be calling all my friends and urging them to order this book; I am restraining myself however.) This book is truly Gatto's Magnum opus; I like it better than any of his other books. His sage observations on the school system, corporate world and consumer-driven culture are brilliant. He even addresses how this country has gone from manufacturing steel to manufacturing "Bubbles" (as in Real Estate bubbles...sound familiar?) It is my earnest hope and prayer that students everywhere will accept the challenge of the Bartleby Project, which is offered on the last page of the book. Then maybe, just maybe, the dreadful course this country is hell-bent on can begin to change. |
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