john-taylor-gatto-weapons-of-mass-instruction

Weapons of Mass Instruction 101
which specialize in ways to disrupt school routines. On the other side,
we rarely hear anyone attributing their success to school time.
The notion of school as a dangerous place is well established then,
even if the troubling metaphor of weaponry deliberately brought to
bear to cause student harm isn't yet widespread. That school can and
does inflict damage is no longer surprising although precisely how
that happens is only impressionistically understood. And "why" not
at all.
This chapter will seek to nail down some specific aspects of the
punitive machinery. It won't be comprehensive - you will have weapons
of your own to add - nor will I try to rank the ones I give you in
any formal order of importance, much of that will depend upon the
nature of your own kids, but I feel compelled to plant this flag firmly
while I have time left - school is not a good place for your kids. If
they are swarmed by friends and win every award the place can offer
it changes nothing. From the first month of my teaching career of
30 years, I realized that intellectual power, creative insight, and good
character was being diminished in my classroom and that indeed I
had been hired for precisely that purpose. I was a clerk in a vast penitentiary;
the rules and procedures were the guards.
A Personal Formula
In a short time I became determined to sabotage the system as
Lusseyran had sabotaged the Nazi system, peacefully in most instances,
but as time passed and my contempt deepened, by small acts
of violence as well. In the course of continuous trial and error experimentation
(behind the fa~ade of being an "English" teacher), I stumbled
upon a formula to change the destiny of students, one at a time,
the way beached starfish have to be rescued. It required assembling a
fairly accurate biography of every individual student from birth onward,
all the key people, relationships, experiences, places, opinions,
accomplishments and failures. School records and memories weren't
good enough, though sometimes there was no alternative. The best
data came from parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, friends and