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Our nation doesn’t need more school. We don’t need more classes, more principles, and longer days. We just need more education. In “Weapons of Mass Instruction”, John Taylor Gatto explains just how far removed “school” and “education” are in his experience in 30 years of public school teaching, and if you care about the future of this nation, you should read what he has to say.

A note of caution: if you get your feelings hurt easily, if you want to read books that are non-confrontational, or if you think compulsory education is the greatest thing since sliced bread, then you probably should not read this book and instead return to doing homework.

However, you are a probable candidate for finding value in this book if any of the following are true:
1. You have surmised that working hard and gaining valuable life experience are more important than getting perfect grades.
2. You felt that the work you did in school was disconnected from your life outside of school.
3. You have met a lot of people with college degrees and certifications who you would never hire in a million years.
4. You think that a reference from someone who has a brain is more valuable than a list of past accolades on a cookie-cutter resume.
5. You sat in a classroom and asked yourself, “Why I am I learning THIS?”

If this is you, then read on...

One of my favorite stories from the book is a story about his Uncle Bud. Gatto writes,

“I can’t remember what ordinary jobs Bud held when he came back from the war as a Captain, but I do know his CV didn’t include a college degree. One day he called me on the phone from Cincinnati, and said that before I went to Cornell he wanted me to work for him “at a real job”, to “stop sponging off your parents and earn your own money.” What job did he have in mind? He said, “I want you to load 125-pound slabs of steel onto boxcars from nine to five every day. I want you to live with me near the Rockwell plant in Ohio and pay room and board. How’s that sound?”

It turned out that Bud was the manager of the steel plant, employing thousands. “I have two dozen Harvard hotshots working for me,” he said. “They’ll do anything I want: shine my shoes, wax my car, but I can’t let them see me favoring my nephew, so I’ll have to work you twice as hard as anyone else. Is that OK?”

A real job with grown-up’s pay at 16? For that, anything would have been OK! I was too unworldly at the time to even think of the big mystery: how on earth could a common steelworker without an education be ordering Harvard graduates around? And running a huge industrial plant? My mistake was thinking of Bud as a man without an education. He had a superb education: it was only schooling he lacked.”

Gatto's book, especially the chapter titled “Walkabout: London”, unequivocally illustrates the fact that SCHOOL IS NOT THE SAME AS EDUCATION. This is so fundamentally important for every person to understand. We are obsessed with school (aided by a multi-billion dollar stimulus package) that we fail to look around us. We have our heads buried under the notion that school is going to be our savior, but what actually saves people is an education, and it is critically important to note the difference between the two. We are like a bunch of people obsessed on “losing weight” because we equate “losing weight” with “health”, but everyone knows that losing weight is not the same as health. Likewise, if we focus on school as opposed to education, we are not going to get well-educated people. We are just going to get well-schooled people, and well-schooled people are not in high demand these days.

Fortunately, I had some great schooling that was an education, most specifically my home-school experience when I was younger. I am the beneficiary of school institutions that had a much stronger correlation to education than many institutions that exist today. But as a whole, the school system in America isn’t so great in providing an education. If you disagree with me on this point, then please contact your local superintendent and ask them if they come into work on Monday mornings with a rich and profound sense that their students are reaching even half of their potential. I’ve talked to them myself, and I know their answer.

Gatto offers some solid advice:

“Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they’ll never be bored”

Teach your children to be leaders and adventurers, and you won’t have to extend the “school” day to get them to create amazing things. You will just need to give them the opportunity to do something besides sit in a desk and take notes.