New Releases by John Taylor Gatto

Three essays containing the information parents need to make an informed decision about their child''s education.

Throw off the shackles of formal schooling and embark upon a rich journey of self-directed, life-long learning After over 100 years of mandatory schooling in the U.S., literacy rates have dropped, families are fragmented, learning "disabilities" are skyrocketing, and children and youth are increasingly disaffected. Thirty years of teaching in the public school system led John Taylor Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory governmental schooling is to blame, accomplishing little but to teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine. He became a fierce advocate of families and young people taking back education and learning, arguing that "genius is as common as dirt," but that conventional schooling is driving out the natural curiosity and problem-solving skills we''re born with, replacing it with rule-following, fragmented time, and disillusionment. Gatto''s radical treatise on public education, a bestseller for 25 years, continues to bang the drum for an unshackling of children and learning from formal schooling. Now, in an ever-more-rapidly changing world with an explosion of alternative routes to learning, it''s poised to continue to shake the world of institutional education for many more years. Featuring a new foreword from Zachary Slayback, an Ivy League dropout and cofounder of tech start-up career foundry Praxis, this 25th anniversary edition will inspire new generations of parents and students to take control of learning and kickstart an empowered society of self-directed lifetime-learners.

A children''s epic rhyme about a sophisticated and cultured spider named Snider, who dreams of becoming a CIA spy and his subsequent adventures working for the CIA.

On the experiences of a teacher from United States.

The transformation of schooling from a twelve-year jail sentence to freedom to learn. John Taylor Gatto''s Weapons of Mass Instruction , 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, Dumbing Us Down , introduced the now-famous expression of the title into the common vernacular. Weapons of Mass Instruction adds another chilling metaphor to the brief against conventional schooling. 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. 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.

With over 70,000 copies of the first edition in print, this radical treatise on public education has been a New Society Publishers’ bestseller for 10 years! Thirty years in New York City’s public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine. This second edition describes the wide-spread impact of the book and Gatto’s "guerrilla teaching." John Gatto has been a teacher for 30 years and is a recipient of the New York State Teacher of the Year award. His other titles include A Different Kind of Teacher (Berkeley Hills Books, 2001) and The Underground History of American Education (Oxford Village Press, 2000).

The underground history of the American education will take you on a journey into the background, philosophy, psychology, politics, and purposes of compulsion schooling.

A collection of three essays prepared by for the "Beyond Schooling" conference in Toronto. "Prologue" is excerpted from John Gatto''s new book: "The Underground History of American Education" ; "Lambs to the Slaughter" is an original submission by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf ; and, the final article, "The lost tools of learning" by Dorothy Sayers, is reprinted from the original essay she wrote many years ago.

Gatto analyzes the roots of the modern American education system, outlining prescriptions for revitalizing the system, advocating greater emphasis on critical analysis, creativity, practicality, and real-world exposure in the curriculum. He calls on educators and administrators to acknowledge student''s need for a spiritual and ethical framework upon which to build a good life.

The author describes his career with the Navy''s first anti-terrorist unit.

Bu çalışma, John Taylor Gatto’nun, geleneksel okul eğitimi yaklaşımlarına geliştirilen eleştirilere eklediği tüyler ürpertici bir metafor… Gatto bu kitabında, okulun insana verdiği zararın rasyonel ve kasıtlı olduğunu gösteriyor. Gatto’ya göre modern pedagojinin esas işlevi, nüfusu yönetilebilir kılmak. Zorunlu eğitim tuzağından kurtulmayı başarabilmiş insanlara ilişkin örneklerle dolu bu kitap, kişisel potansiyeli gerçekleştirmenin temel şartının farklı bir yetiştirilme ve beceri edinme şekli ile mümkün olabileceğini ortaya koyuyor. Gatto buna, “açık kaynak öğrenme” adını veriyor. Acil sorunlara cevap veren ve bazı tartışmaları da beraberinde getireceği muhakkak olan bu kitap, mevcut eğitim sistemine dair şüphelere sahip olan herkesin ilgisini çekecek.

Emburrecendo-nos cada vez mais é um livro que questiona a escolaridade obrigatória quando esta tem por base um conceito de educação que mais não faz do que ensinar os jovens a conformarem-se com a ordem social e a economia. É um livro que nos revela, de uma forma avassaladora, a realidade chocante dos sistemas escolares actuais, tendo-se tornado uma obra de referência para todos aqueles que se preocupam com a educação dos seus filhos e com estado geral da educação.