Written by a certified and well-regarded NYC teacher (he was named Teacher of the Year several years in a row), THIS BOOK IS AN ABSOLUTE REVELATION.

Gatto minces NO words in condemning the scourge of compulsory schooling. This is a quick and informative read EVEN IF YOU NEVER WANT TO HOMESCHOOL. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, I just want people to start educating themselves about what we've done and how we might do it differently moving forward. The pandemic lockdown gave us pause to think about so many of our institutions and what we deemed essential. Many people, sadly, came away clamoring for school more than they had in the past...but I can only hope that it opened a few more minds to the possibility of another way. It certainly did for me!

Some good quotes
"Was it possible I had been hired not to increase children's power but to diminish it? ...slowly I began to realize that the bells and the confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the surveillance, and all the rest of schooling were designed to prevent children from learning how to think and act, to coax them into addiction and dependent behavior."

"It rings a bell and a young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to another cell."

"School...destroys communities by relegating the training of children to a handful of certified experts."