John Taylor Gatto’s book   Weapons of Mass Instruction

A letter to my 17 year old granddaughter

Paraphrased

After high school takes off a few years to work and work until you understand yourself.

Remember no high school, homeschool or College can give you an education.  Only your can do that.

Grandpa John’s Real Learning Index

Self-knowledge: This is the biggest prize of all. Without it you are lost.  You should know your own character:  strengths, weaknesses, blessings, curses. 

Observation: Your power of observation in any situation should be razor sharp:  like a camera lens sucking in accurate data for later analysis.  Can you read primary documents or must you take someone else’s work for their meaning?

Feedback:  Are you trained to pick up cues about yourself from the reactions of others and from signals out of the environment?  Do you have trouble accepting criticism and evaluating its worth?

Analysis:  Can you take a new problem, break it into its elements, examine the relationships, look at major outside influences, and do all this without expert help?

Mirroring: Have you learned to be everyone else as well as yourself?  Can you be a chameleon at will?  Or are you trapped in your own right skin.  Can you fit into every group, even a group of your enemies, opting in and out as you please, yet remaining yourself?

Expression:  Do you have a voice that is your own?  Can you deliver that voice with style and force in writing and speaking?  Otherwise you will be swallowed up by someone whose expressiveness is superior to your own. 

Judgment:  Can you evaluate dispassionately?  Can you see through falsehood?  The society you are entering is a house of mirrors; people are not as they appear. How much chance did you have to develop judgment and test it?

Adding Value:  Do you add value to every encounter, to every group of which you are a part?  Do you know what that means?  If you aren’t worth something to others, then are you worthless?