Weapons of Mass Instruction

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

Compulsory schooling cripples imagination, critical thinking, and strips youth of their best qualities, producing a nation of employees. Weapons of Mass Instruction shows how to escape this trap and help develop more meaningful lives.

$14.30 USD$22.99 USD

Earn up to 23 Points.

Description

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.

About The Author(s)

John Gatto was a schoolteacher for 30 years. He resigned in the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times upon receiving the New York State Teacher of the Year award. He has been a fierce advocate for self-directed “guerrilla” education for decades, and is also the author of Weapons of Mass Instruction and The Underground History of American Education .

View Author Profile

Book Specifications

ISBN: 9780865716698

Page Count: 240

Dimensions: 6 × 9 × 0.48 in

Publication Date: April 01, 2010

Audiobook Narrator: Michael Puttonen

Audiobook Length: 8:32:00

You Might Also Like

Reviews

There are no reviews yet.

Be the first to review “Weapons of Mass Instruction”

Give the Gift of
Social Change

Give the Gift of Social Change

Your support contributes to the amplification of voices that strive for progress, making it a thoughtful and impactful present for any occasion. Join us in fostering a more informed and compassionate world.

Select your currency