Friday, January 06, 2017

Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto

Weapons of Mass Instruction is a difficult book to read as an educator, but having been schooled in the public schools there's no question many of his points resonated. However,  I don't agree with every argument because I believe children take the reigns of their agency at varied stages and that it is the responsibility of adults to:

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6

Gospel instruction teaches us to write the words of God upon our hearts, to feast upon the word of God and to serve that feast to the children in our charge. And, I agree with the founders that character education is imperative. Children do not teach themselves or their peers correct principles in my experience. Also, I have found that the ability to study all knowledge in one changes everything and that combining the fire of truth and the fire of learning build something greater together.

Still, this is a book has great wisdom and many thoughts not just worth considering, but worth acting upon.

I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves. ~John Taylor Gatto