Weapons of Mass Instruction

Focuses on mechanisms of traditional education which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a by-product of rote-memorisation drills.

Préface

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

Auteur

John Gatto was a teacher in New York City's public schools for over 30 years and is a recipient of the New York State Teacher of the Year award. A much-sought after speaker on education throughout the United States, his other books include A Different Kind of Teacher (Berkeley Hills Books, 2001) and The Underground History of American Education (Oxford Village Press, 2000).

Texte du rabat

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

Have our schools become mere Weapons of Mass Instruction, or can they be transformed to offer genuine freedom to learn?

*John Taylor Gatto has been a hero of mine for years. He has the courage to challenge an educational system that is obsolete and out of touch with reality. Years ago, he gave me the courage to speak out and write my books. I trust this book will give you the courage to speak out and challenge the system.

• • Robert Kiyosaki, author Rich Dad, Poor Dad

  John Taylor Gatto's voice must be heard ... He knows why the (education) system is so utterly flawed and lays it out right here. We ignore his profound insights at our own peril.

  • Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, founder Zaytuna Institute (credits and title need checking)

  Weapons of Mass Instruction is a hard-hitting critique of the mechanisms of compulsory schooling which cripple imagination and discourage critical thinking. In his earlier book, John Taylor Gatto brought his now-famous title - Dumbing Us Down

  • into common use worldwide. Weapons of Mass Instruction promises to add another chilling metaphor to the lengthy brief against schooling.

  Weapons of Mass Instruction demonstrates that the harm school inflicts is quite rational and deliberate. The real function of pedagogy, Gatto claims, is to render the common population manageable, to remove the obligation of child care from adult workers so they are free to fuel the industrial economy, and to train the next generation into subservient obedience to the state. Gatto reveals that Ivy League schools do not produce the most successful graduates; that some of the world's riches entrepreneurs are high school drop outs; and that Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie didn't finish elementary school. Filled with examples of people who have escaped the trap of compulsory schooling, Weapons of Mass Instruction shows us that the realization of personal potential requires a different way of growing up and learning, one Gatto calls "open source learning."

Urgent and controversial, this book is a page-turner that promises to appeal to all who harbor doubts about the current education system.

A remarkable achievement. I can't remember ever reading such a profound analysis of modern education

• Howard Zinn, on The Underground History of American Education

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

Contenu

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: Invitation to an Open Conspiracy: The Bartleby Project

Index
About the Author