Customer Reviews

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

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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".

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)

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.

John Taylor Gatto has written another thought provoking book about the critical problem of allowing children to become educated. This one approaches the defects of current schooling from a number of directions that should leave no doubt about his reasons for objecting to compulsory schooling.

I was a public school teacher for only a couple of years in the early 60's teaching science and math in a small rural high school. I did not experience the vicious corruption of purpose in the way that John Taylor Gatto did in New York. Never the less, I formed the firm opinion that schools supported by government were a serious mistake in a free society and were dangerous to that society's long-term health. It is small wonder that many of our citizens value freedom so lightly that they appear willing to give it up for an illusion of security. After all, most have been bored and conditioned by 13 years of government schooling to accept authority even without reasons.

We need a full range of competing schools that offer the variety we find in fields such as food growing and delivery. We might also find that such schools carefully look for ways to deliver desired information more rapidly at lower cost. School costs have gone up at the same time quality has gone down. This is the picture of a failing institution, only government life support enables it to continue to miss-educate.

Gatto has done us all a huge service by providing a history of educational thought in America and identified its roots and personalities. You would be correct if you thought my education school classes failed to mention this part of history. After reading his earlier books, I went back and read more thoroughly the musings of John Dewey and others. It was a revelation and something I felt was not compatible with the American ideals of freedom.

I had always wondered why the classes in the education school were the worst classes in the entire college. After all, they should have learned something to become a professor of education. As teachers we always joked about how irrelevant those classes were to the actual work of a teacher. After reading Gatto, I suspect that those professors were selected because they were incapable of inspiring instruction and would fit well in the "dumbing down" process.

Even in my own public school education in the mid 40's, I was taught reading without phonics. They failed to suppress my interest in reading, but did delay my competence in spelling. The "dumbing down" process was evident at that time although it was just getting well started. I shudder to think of the many of our fellow citizens who have been unable to break free and perform their own critical evaluations. And they vote!

Private schools often mistakenly take leads from the public schools since the latter define the test content that all use to evaluate their standing. Mr. Gatto correctly identifies standardized testing as the first tool that needs to be destroyed to permit children to pursue an education rather than be schooled as obedient robots.

I can't completely agree with Gatto's recommendation that folks omit most schooling in favor of education. I personally converted from an avid history major to a chemistry major after I found as a college freshman that history instructors added only trivia to the faster knowledge acquisition skills I had already acquired through reading. However in chemistry, my skills were inferior and I definitely benefited from an instructor's guidance. This was not true of all classes, but there was enough of the challenging to keep me interested for many years.

I believe Mr. Gatto is entirely correct when he recommends homeschooling. The homeschooled students I have met were much better prepared and articulate than most of their contemporaries. They also fit well in the company of educated adults rather than participate in the resentments and conformity of perpetual childhood.

Every parent and taxpayer needs to read this book and develop his own position on schooling and education after incorporating the information that Gatto so vividly describes!

Gatto knows what he is talking about and is absolutely right about how the State schools are destroying our children: The intent of the State is ultimately to change our children's values, not to educate them. The State is training future citizens to serve its own purposes. Businesses do not have personnel departments any more--they have "human resources." Our children are nothing more to them than future resources for the State.

This book is much more likely to be read than Gatto's The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling because of its shorter length and easy readability. However, there are some problems that come with short-cuts. For one thing, this book is not nearly as well documented as his other books. If you want documentation, you have to read Underground History.

Secondly, Gatto is on a mission in this book and he needlessly attacks those who could be his most avid supporters. As one example, he unfairly attacks Calvinism and Puritanism as part of the cause of our present school dilemma. Modern history has been very successful in demonizing Calvin and the Puritans, but I never trust a history book. Reading the writing of the Puritans themselves has shown me that they were some of the most humble and joyful people who ever lived, and of all groups in history, the ones who fought most successfully for liberty from tyranny in government. While John Calvin and Martin Luther promoted public education, both were very aware of what it could turn into if taken over by the wrong people. Martin Luther said, "I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth." Likewise, the Puritans recognized that liberty walks hand in hand with moral values. Without moral restraint, self-governance is impossible. When Gatto attacks Calvinists, he is attacking all those of reformed faith: Presbyterians, Baptists, Anglicans, Lutherans--the very people who today are fighting for the separation of school and state, the very ones who are already homeschooling or setting up private schools.

Finally, Gatto presents no real solutions to the problem. He does recommend that students refuse to take standardized tests, but for children who are old enough to do that, it is already too late. Studies have proven over and over that the emotional/psychological/spiritual bonding that takes place between a child and his parents is not complete until age eight to ten. By this age, the family's values are thoroughly instilled and family loyalty is a given. You would be hard pressed to find a child development expert (not state-employed) who recommends formal schooling before the age of 8, because of the trauma of separation of the child from the family. The book School Can Wait gives the results of over 7,000 studies over a ten-year period, involving 80,000 children from 3,500 schools. The conclusion is that even without any formal education at all, children who start school between the ages of 8 and 10 will likely surpass their peers by the time they reach eighth grade. Better Late Than Early: A New Approach to Your Child's Education is another great book on this topic.

What most parents may not realize is that every state differs in compulsory education laws. Until last year the state of Kansas did not require formal schooling until age 8. Last year it was lowered to age 7. Gatto should have mentioned this in his book--keep your kids out of the school as long as you can! Check out your state laws. The later you start your kids in school, the fewer problems you will have with peer dependency, and the less likely that the State will succeed in changing your child's values.

I love Gatto's books and I relied heavily on information in Underground History for the writing of my own book Two Trees of Knowledge: A Biblical Case for the Separation of School and State. I would highly recommend Weapons of Mass Instruction to anyone who wants to know the truth about public education. If you want solutions however, I would point you to School Can Wait, Better Late than Early, or Two Trees of Knowledge.

A no-holds-barred assault on institutionalized compulsory education in America. Even without the many citations this book would ring true; with them Gatto's case becomes very formidable.

Essentially Gatto makes the case that the system of compulsory education we have in America today is not a natural system representing the accumulated wisdom of the ages about youth, learning and instruction; instead Gatto maintains the system is an unnatural construct hatched, implemented and perpetuated by self-serving persons and institutions with identifiable roots in Prussia and German pragmatism and America's Progressive Era.

This particular work by Gatto is marred by his repeated usage of letters previously written by him to various personages, and by Gatto's dependence on referring the reader to other books to learn more about fundamental points; points he chooses to not argue to completion on his own. I would rather this book be ten times as long and Gatto make his case to me directly and completely; not through sharing letters he has written on certain subjects, and by referring me to other books.

I read this book with great anticipation. However, it didn't take long into the book before I became frustrated. The author makes statement after statement, claim after claim and does not so much as include a single foot- or end-note. What are his sources? He doesn't even include even a selected bibliography. He may mention the works he is quoting from or referring to within the text of the book but that is simply not enough. For a work of research, as the author so obviously has done, one must include the reference material, not only for those wishing to read further on the subject, but also to give credibility to the author's work! Was anyone else bothered by the lack of sources in this book?

I wanted to like this book. I am in agreement with the author on this subject and was especially interested in this book because of all his experience as a teacher. I've read some on this topic myself, and I know much of what he claims to be true and factual, but the lack of reference material is disturbing in a work of this sort and I can't believe an editor would allow it. In addition, the book devolves into a conspiracy-theory rant based on anecdotal evidence and subjective analysis.

Mr. Gotto's premise is provocative and, I think, dead-on. However, his handling of the subject and the material detracts from his argument.

I enjoyed "Dumbing Us Down" and as a homeschooling mom I am always interested in books regarding education and its reform. This book starts out strong. It offers lots of good historical data and facts and then it turns into a diatribe of negativity about not only the education system but the government as well. It left me with a bitter taste in my mouth and a discouraging sense of helplessness. I had to FORCE myself to finish it.

One thing that bothered me immensely about this book is how Mr. Gatto sings the praises of the drop out and gives us examples of successful drop out stories. Yes, of course they exist, but what is not taken into account about these successful drop outs is their family connections and early childhood experiences. Bill Gates, for instance, comes from a wealthy family, went to private schools where he was afforded the opportunity to have a computer - in 1968!!! Mr. Gates states that all of the years of practice and working with computers prior to entering Harvard were paramount to his success. Mr. Gatto also gives a lot of examples of self-made people who did so as children...in the 18th and 19th century. The world is not the same today as it was then, Ben Franklin (who again was wealthy) would have rather had his parents around at age 12 than to be taking over the responsibilities of running a plantation, I'm sure. No, back then children we not children - they worked hard. What he doesn't do is give actual statistics of the success of the drop-out population in this country TODAY.

There are some excellent points and interesting facts in the book,for instance it opened my eyes to the difference between "schooled" and "educated", but overall it came across as "us against them fear for your life and the lives of your children" book. He makes the point of saying he sounds like a conspiracy theorist (he does) and reason would dictate that if the Rockerfellers, Carnegies, and Rothchild family control the education system to keep everyone stupid and in check, then they also control all governments as some people think. Even if this is true, to live with this belief system only keeps you in a helpless victim mentality.

It seems that he obviously bitterly regrets being a teacher, yet there are many, many other teachers who changed the lives and made a difference in the lives of their students (Oprah credits her success to a teacher). Maybe it's all in the attitude. My attitude is that you make the best with what you DO have and don't focus on what you don't have. If you want to read a book that actually is helpful in making education decisions for your children, I recommend "Five Minds For the Future" and "The Unschooled Mind - How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach" both by Howard Gardner. "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell is also fantastic.

I am happy that in the end of the book he switched from the pointlessness of schooled education to an actual way to take action. Perhaps if in the end, we all do as Mr. Gatto suggests, start standing up in droves against the crummy education system in this country, if WE the taxpaying people, WE the people whose children attend these schools stop complaining and took action, that then, and ONLY then, the system would change. This country definitely needs an education revolution!

This is a must read for all Americans, with or without kids. This is not a book of wild conspiracy theories or speculation. It is a fact-based chronicle of our modern education system -- where it came from, and its intended purpose. Gatto makes a convincing case that this system touches and impacts all aspects of our society, culture, politics and economy, and that it stifles individualism and true happiness.

There are portions of the book that follow his previous work "An Underground History of American Education", a lengthy work of brilliance. But these portions are more condensed, and straight to the point. There is more urgency from the author this time. And there is palpable anger. Gatto's understandable disgust with government schooling, and the damage it does, is made obvious.

Anyone who would say "Oh c'mon, public school isn't THAT bad!" needs to read this book. Now. Even if you don't have kids, it will enlighten you. Now I understand who I am to a better degree. Being a product of the forced schooling machine, I can plainly see the lingering scars.

Get this book. I was surprised to find it a page-turner. Just try not to punch a hole in the wall as you read it!

This book shocked me, and while I am not easily shocked, in shocking me made me realize how even my own radical outlook (as Howard Zinn notes, a radical is someone who no longer believes government is part of the solution) has come to accommodate, to accept, the most obvious tool of subordination, the public school system.

First, my fly-leaf notes, and then a couple of conclusions.

Constructive quote up front (xiv):

"We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness--curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight--simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids to truly competent adults, and by giving each student the autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then."

The author's bottom line: public schooling is a deliberate transplant from Germany that Carnegie and Rockefeller and Ford and other foundations designed as a deliberate means of dumbing down the mass population and segregating elite learning from mass "functional" learning devoid of political or philosophical reflection.

Early on the author suggests that public schooling opened the way for marketing American over-consumption by killing independent thinking and crafting group identities defined by the group and its "lifestyle" rather than the individual's own self-awareness.

Myself being a pioneer for Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and now public intelligence and open everything, I was quite pleasantly surprised to discover that the author calls his vision of the correct approach "open source education."

He works hard to blend in an astonishing array of both critical observers and political or foundation/capitalist figures going back to the 1700's, which emphasis on the post Civil War era when the Northern schooling paradigm took hold, and the early 1900's when the top educators of America, funded by the Carnegie and Rockefeller family fortunes, set out to destroy the roots of the American dream--the self-taught frontier mentality in which there were no children, only young people constantly in the process of learning from real-life and fulfilling adult roles as soon as their bodies were able.

Schooling is about obedience, not about learning. The author says "Mandatory education services children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants." (xxii).

Early on the author supports his radical critique by pointing out that literacy dropped with the spread of mandatory schooling, from 4% going into World War II to 19% going into Korea (a mere 10 years later) to 27% going into Viet-Nam.

Further on the author expresses the view that compulsory schooling set out to destroy self-reliance, ingenuity, courage, competence, and other frontier virtues, because they threatened management. He explicitly relates both the "scientific method" with social control, and takes pains to show how schooling is administrative control far removed from learning.

Across the entire book he catalogues with example and with gifted prose, the manner in which schools separate children from themselves, their families, and reality.

In describing schools as they should be, the author discusses the purpose of his guerrilla curriculum, to give his young adults time off to explore, to create "maps" as self-discovery tools and guides for others, and to unlock the hidden knowledge of the elderly.

He is virulently opposed to standardized testing that he says is a tool to segregate the population into five classes: gifted honors, gifted, special progress, mainstream, and special education. He points out that the latter category is the cash cow for schools, and that is one reason schools rush to "downgrade" students to that category.

He proposes that all parents and students refuse to take the standardized tests henceforth, and notes with appreciation the number of more enlightened colleges that now do not demand such scores. He goes on at length, with examples, to suggest that high test scores do not correlate with anything of significance.

He makes it clear that the greatest victim of this entire government-corporate-school bureaucracy cabal is the middle class student.

Gifted phrases abound in this book:

"fatal calculus in which real experience is subtracted from young lives."

"Incomplete men and women with a shaky grasp of the past and no capacity to visualize the future."

"Mass Testing institutionalizes dishonesty."

He is most admiring of the Amish model, and I draw many parallels between the health care and the educational systems in the USA, both being 50% waste, fraud, and abuse.

The author considers the federally-mandated, bureacraticized and largely ineffective school system to be both a religion--a form of state religion, the state ubber alles--and a crime in that all who maintain the system benefit from it financially, while destroying the minds and hearts of generation after generation.

Most telling to me, as a student of information asymmetries and data pathologies that concentrate wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many, is the author's focus on schools as a form of "information deprivation." On pages 106-107:

"The social order to which he [Playfair] and Smithy belonged was held together by deliberately depriving most people of information they needed to maximize opportunities."

I put this book down feeling that it is incendiary in the most positive sense of the word, a form of creative destruction waiting to be implemented.

The book is very up to date with the current economic meltdown and the Goldman Sachs looting of the economy (who is in the White House matters not--Goldman Sachs going back to Rubin has owned the US Treasury, prints the money, assumes the debt "in our name," and generally commits treason in the guise of economic policy-making.

Below are a selection of books that I would recommend along with this one. See all of my Amazon reviews, with links to the Amazon page as well as to my buried reviews, at Phi Beta Iota.
Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids
Philosophy and the Social Problem: The Annotated Edition
Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It (BK Currents (Paperback))
Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography)
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All