Weapons of mass instruction : a schoolteacher's journey through the dark world of compulsory schooling

241 Pages·2009·3.247 MB·English

by  John Taylor Gatto

Praise for
WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION
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He has the courage to challenge an educational system that is
obsolete and out of touch with reality.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.
- ROBERT KIYOSAKI, author, Rich Dad, Poor Dad
For over 20 years John Taylor Gatto has been working tirelessly to
teach us the truth about our educational system - that compulsory
schooling does not work to foster a democratic way oflife!
- MARY LEu~, Founder of the Albany Free School
All of Gatto's words shine. Let's have Gatto as US Secretary
of Education and then, this time, he can blow it all up!
- GEORGE MEEGAN, author of The Longest Walk and
world record holder, longest unbroken march in human history
We accept Mr Gatto's invitation to an open conspiracy
against forced schooling here in Europe as well. The virtues of
this book, its precise ideas, realistic proposals and sharp
conscience, class it among the best works of Thoreau,
Jefferson, Hume or Diderot. A masterly book.
- The Kadmos Paris Magazine, Paris, October 2008.
In Weapons of Mass Instruction, John Taylor Gatto points
out the folly of the business of American education, especially
standardized testing. Listen up, for children's sake!
- WENDY ZEIGLER, artist and former student ofJ ohn Taylor Gatto.
It happens rarely, but whenever I do read a newspaper,
listen to the radio, or watch television, on a variety of topics,
I find myself wondering, "How? How can this happen? How can
people be so gullible?" Gatto has an answer and it is disturbing
as well as compelling: 20th Century US education.
His argument renews gratitude to my father for having
given me the chance to dodge full immersion in the homogenizing
machine, and makes me more determined than ever to pass
this gift of becoming an individual on to my own children.
- TANIA AEBI, author of Maiden Voyage and world record holder,
first circumnavigation of the world by a solo female sailor
I run a school. John Gatto is my conscience.
He has taught me to hate school and love learning. This book
will do that for others, and we need them!
- BECKY ELDER, Northfield School of The Liberal Arts
John Taylor Gatto explains how compulsory public schools
train children to be employees and consumers instead ofleaders
and achievers in a free America.
- PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY, president of Eagle Forum
John Taylor Gatto has forcefully presented the case
that ... a people who believe in freedom will never emerge
from a system that starts with coercion.
- MICHAEL P. FARRIS Chairman, Home School
Legal Defense Association
John Taylor Gatto reminds us that children aren't just a
future workforce in need of training. They're individuals curious
about the world, and citizens of a self-governing republic.
Our decisions about education should reflect that.
-DAVID BOAz Executive Vice President, Cato Institute, author,
Libertarianism: A Primer and The Politics of Freedom
Praise for
John Taylor Gatto
I count John Gatto among my heroes
- ROBERTBLY
I've loved John Gatto's work ever since I first
encountered his astounding essays.
- CHRISTIANE NORTHRUP, M.D., author of Womens
Bodies, Womens Wisdom
Gatto's voice is strong and unique, a Socrates
of the educational world.
- THOMAS MOORE, author of Care of the Soul
I agree with damn near every semi-colon and
comma that Mr. Gatto has written.
- TOM PETERS, author of In Search of Excellence
Gatto is a singular antidote to stale convention.
- DAVID GUTERSON, author of Snow Falling On Cedars
A remarkable achievement. I can't remember ever
reading such a profound analysis of modern education.
- HOWARD ZINN, on The Underground
History ofA merican Education
Education's most original thinker.
- DANIEL H. PINK, author of Free Agent Nation
Brilliant Work!
- LAISSEZ FAIRE BOOKS

WEAPDNS
MASS
OF
INSTRUCTIDN
A
SCHOOLTEACHERS JOURNEY
THROUGH THE DARK WORLD OF
COMPULSORY SCHOOLING
JOHN TAYLOR GATTO
Author of the best-selling DUMBING Us DOWN
NEW SOCIETY PUBLISHERS
CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA:
A catalog record for this publication is available
from the National Library of Canada.
Copyright © 2009 by John Taylor Gatto.
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Diane McIntosh.
Cover art: George Deem, detail of Art School, 1989. Oil on canvas.
Printed,in Canada. Second printing February 2009.
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-86571-631-5
Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Weapons of Mass Instruction
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Contents
DEDICATION .....••••......... XI
This book is dedicated to the great and difficult art of
family building, and to its artists: mothers, fathers,
daughters, sons, grandchildren, grandmothers,
grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws.
PROLOGUE: AGAINST SCHOOL ...•. . . XIII
I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in
Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time,
I became an expert in boredom.
1 EVERYTHING You KNOW
ABOUT SCHOOLS IS WRONG. 1
Forced schooling seduces the trapped into believing that
inert knowledge, memorized fact bits and sequences is the
gold standard of intellectual achievement. Learning to
con~ect those bits into meanings for yourself is discouraged.
This habit training is a major weapon of mass instruction.
2 WALKABOUT: LONDON . . . . . . . • • . • . . 27
Nick Schulman, a neighbor of mine, cut junior high to
play pool, and dropped out of high school to play poker.
He became a millionaire at the age of 21 this year, on the
World Poker Tour. His new goal is to study philosophy
now that he's fixed for life.
3 FAT STANLEY AND THE LANCASTER AMISH 61
Fat Stanley told me he had to cut school almost every
day because he didn't want to end up like me, working
for someone else. He was 13 when he said that to me.
An Amish man in Ohio told me they could build a rocket
to the moOtI if they felt like it, but it was a stupid idea.
vii
VllI WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION
4 DAVID SARNOFF'S CLASSROOM •....• 71
Sarnoff, the founder of RCA dropped out of elementary
school to sell newspapers on the street. What he learned
there he could never have learned in school.
5 HECTOR ISN'T THE PROBLEM ••• 83
I was the official New York State Teacher of the Year when
I quit on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal, because
I couldn't stand to hurt children any more.
6 THE CAMINO DE SANTIAGO ••• • 91
Inspired by the pilgrimage to St. James' tomb which
draws young and old from around the world each year to
walk across Spain, I decided to help kids toward lives as
producers rather than consumers; as players rather than
spectators.
7 WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION. 99
The trapped flea strategy; ugliness; the horse-in-box effect;
the artificial extension of childhood; misdirection; the
cauldron of broken time: these and more are some deadly
Weapons of Mass Instruction, intended to convert human
beings into human resources.
8 WHAT IS EDUCATION~ ... 145
According to Kant, four questions live at the heart of
all educational quests: What can I know? What may I
hope? What ought I to do? What is man? School policy in
America is made by people who would rather submit to
torture than allow students to answer these questions or
any that could make a human difference.
9 A LETTER TO MY GRANDDAUGHTER
ABOUT DARTMOUTH • . .. .•• •• • . . 157
You just turned 17 this month, granddaughter, and you'll
be leaving the nest for college soon, I suppose. I wish you
wouldn't, but I know better than to say that, so at least let
me try to reduce the stress your elite high school, Bronx
Science, has embedded in your mind. No matter what
you've heard, college isn't important to your future, so
don't worry about it. Go or not, do well or not. Ten years
Contents ix
from now you won't remember a single class or professor.
What really matters isn't taught there. The saddest people
on earth are the ones who go back to college reunions - 35
percent of all college graduates regret the waste of time and
money, and wish they hadn't attended; 50 percent say they
didn't learn anything useful there.
10 INCIDENT AT HIGHLAND HIGH. .. 175
Last January, a sixteen-year-old German girl - shy and
well-behaved - was arrested in her home in Nuremberg,
Germany, by fifteen armed policemen. Her crime was
homeschooling. Reading about that reminded me of the
time I was almost arrested lecturing to the senior class at
a wealthy high school in Rockland County, New York.
I was revealing the GPAs and SAT scores of American
presidents and other prominent individuals when a squad
of police halted my lecture at the superintendent's request.
It was the weirdest event of my entire life, something I
thought only happened in Germany. I'm still trying to
figure out what it meant.
AFTERWORD: INVITATION TO AN OPEN
CONSPIRACY: THE BARTLEBY PROJECT. . .. 193
The whole diseased empire of institutional schooling
is, like the wonderful one-horse shay, extremely fragile.
Its most vulnerable point, the glue that holds the thing
together, is standardized testing which purports, dishon
estly, to determine success or failure in future life. The
author invites you, singly or in groups, to politely decline to
participate in these tests, saying only, "I prefer not to take
this test." Nothing more - no bad language, no violence. If
ten percent refused to take the tests, the school world would
be shaken to its foundations. Call it an open conspiracy. Be
brave. There's nothing they can do to you that matters if
you sincerely prefer not to. But don't fake it - if you love
to take these tests, take them by all means.
INDEX .••••••••• 207
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 215