<p><strong style="color: rgba(33, 37, 41, 1)">The transformation of schooling from a twelve-year jail sentence to freedom to learn.&nbsp;</strong></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(33, 37, 41, 1)">John Taylor Gatto's&nbsp;</span><em style="color: rgba(33, 37, 41, 1)">Weapons of Mass Instruction&nbsp;</em><span style="color: rgba(33, 37, 41, 1)">, now available in paperback, focuses on mechanisms of traditional education which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a byproduct of rote-memorization drills. Gatto's earlier book,&nbsp;</span><em style="color: rgba(33, 37, 41, 1)">Dumbing Us Down&nbsp;</em><span style="color: rgba(33, 37, 41, 1)">, introduced the now-famous expression of the title into the common vernacular.&nbsp;</span><em style="color: rgba(33, 37, 41, 1)">Weapons of Mass Instruction&nbsp;</em><span style="color: rgba(33, 37, 41, 1)">adds another chilling metaphor to the brief against conventional schooling.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgba(33, 37, 41, 1)">Gatto demonstrates that the harm school inflicts is rational and deliberate. The real function of pedagogy, he argues, is to render the common population manageable. To that end, young people must be conditioned to rely upon experts, to remain divided from natural alliances and to accept disconnections from their own lived experiences. They must at all costs be discouraged from developing self-reliance and independence.&nbsp;</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(33, 37, 41, 1)">Escaping this trap requires a strategy Gatto calls "open source learning" which imposes no artificial divisions between learning and life. Through this alternative approach our children can avoid being indoctrinated-only then can they achieve self-knowledge, good judgment, and courage.</span></p><p><br></p>