I am the perfect product of my compulsory educational system.

I was always a top student, always did my assignments to the best of my ability, took every single standardized test thrown at me and eventually graduated with honors. However, when I graduated from high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, had barely any knowledge of Canadian issues (never mind the rest of the world) and couldn’t remember half the crap I learned throughout the whole 12 years anyway. If you feel like your compulsory education failed you too, then Weapons of Mass Instruction offers some perspective as to how the hell it happened.

Weapons of Mass Instruction is about the fallacies of our school system and how to correct them. Author John Taylor Gatto makes his position clear from the prologue’s title: “against school.”

He backs this position up with 30 years of school teaching under his belt. Gatto believes that it’s possible to abolish our current education system and to inexpensively create a new system that will “let kids take an education rather than receive schooling,” with a new method he calls “open-source learning,” which involves a more hands-on, less structured approach to education.

Gatto argues that our schooling system, akin to a factory, is used to turn children into, well, children.

He believes that forced education conditions children to be obedient, docile, self-alienated consumers who will never dream of questioning authority. The reason for this, according to Gatto, is that if school creates a shallow inner life you will turn to low-level addictive behaviour, such as video games or reality television (Jersey Shore, anyone?).

This behaviour causes you to become a perfect consumer, fuelling a capitalist society.

For me, this sounded all too infuriatingly plausible.

My education didn’t truly become an education until I took matters into my own hands and decided what I wanted to pursue on my own.

I think this is common for many students in our society. Our compulsory education system is set up in such a way that it’s main goal is to transform you into a participant in the economy.

The claim that schools try to make each and every student their absolute best is completely erroneous - someone always needs to take out the garbage and our schools are set up to ensure that this happens. Gatto’s book illustrates how and why this happens, and what we can do to change things as students. It’s entirely possible that I’m just bitter about my less-than-comprehensive high school learning experience, but Weapons of Mass Instruction makes for an interesting and informative read, even if you think your high school was perfect.