Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling

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 He has the courage to challenge an educational system that is obsolete and out of touch with reality.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