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

16 WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION
In 1949 in an essay which has slipped through the cracks of history,
Science and the Moral Life, the academic, Max Otto, found
the he~vy involvement of business behind the curtain of schooling
far from odd. He said it was something naturally to be expected.
A stupendous revolution in marketing had taken place under the
public nose, one brought about by the reality of mass production
which could not be constrained to simply meet human· demands,
but instead imposed the demands of production on human wishes.
Where once the conventional laws of supply and demand put the
buyer in the driver's seat, in the topsy-turvy world of financial capitalism
demand had to be created for whatever could be supplied most
profitably at the moment. To keep this golden goose laying eggs,
consumption had to be taught as the most important end of life. It
was this new reality, he said, that explained business manipulation of
schooling:
It is natural businessmen should seek to influence the enactment
and administration oflaws, national and international,
and that they should try to control education.
Keep that uppermost in your mind as you read my book.
A Different Agenda
The new forced schooling octopus taught anyone unable to escape its
tentacles that inert knowledge - memorizing the dots - is the gold
standard of intellectual achievement. Not connecting those dots. It
set out to create a reflexive obedience to official directions as opposed
to accepting responsibility for one's own learning.
These habit trainings are among the most important weapons of
mass instruction. On the higher levels of the school pyramid, among
those labeled "gifted" and "talented;' the standard is more sophisticated:
there children are required to memorize both dots as well as
what experts say is the correct way to connect those dots into narratives:
even to memorize several conflicting expert analyses in a
simulation of genuine critical thinking. Original thinking in dot con-