When I first heard about how Obama was going to use our children as ammo against us as Parents, I was very upset and my first response was to keep them home. Not because he was speaking to our children but because of all the lesson plans and intent to educate them according to his plan that has stirred up our great nation.

After sleeping on it, I thought well his speech could be used against him if we as parents properly educate our children with how our Government should work, and what liberties and rights we have that is so beautifuly laid out in the constutition. And then show them how they are not only being stripped away but the burden of debt that is being placed upon them becaue of unwise decision of our leaders past and present.

After reading other blogs on this same subject here is my view.

I do believe it is our responsibility to let our leaders know what we don't agree with. They are elected to protect
our liberties and our rights, which in turn protects our religion which in turn protects our Families. Our leaders are an extension of us the people of the United States of America. When issues or problems
are brought to the table they should first run it past the constitution and see what they have the authority to do. Our leaders should meet together and debate and communicate, for our best interests and the interests of those that put them into office. Whether it is for the good for the people or not. For our current leaders it seems to be all a game and When someone who is as Power hungry as Obama doesn't get his way he has to go one step further, one
step closer to a society that I don't want. Bottom line based on the lesson plans from the Dept of Education I have heard of, this speech has the potential to be far more than a motivational speech from our president and seems to be a speech to convince our kids to support policies and social goals that I do not agree with. When the final
speech text is released on Monday, Chad & I will read and discuss it. For now we plan to send our children to school and have them watch it and then use family home evening to talk about it as a family. Whether or not you allow your kids to watch the speech is your own choice, you can make it into a family home evening and pull your family closer
together, and talk about how to respectfullly make a stand as to what is right. So bottom line, take this opportunity as adults and let your elected leaders know how you feel. No mater how that may be.

Here in Alabama or maybe just as Harvest Elementary do not have the right as parents here to enter the school and observe anytime we want. It is at the discretion of both the teacher and the principal. That makes people more nervous when our president, whose office we respect, but most of whose policies and methods we don't, decides to directly address our children. I am grateful that the school is allowing parents to choose whether or not their children watch this speech, just because we should have the choice.

Fundamentally the constitution gives the federal government no power or authority to deal in any matter of education, other than the "promote the general welfare" clause, which I do not think extends to providing lesson plans etc.. It almost bothers me more that the Department of Education has prepared lesson plans centered around this
speech than that the speech is being given. Any other speech by a famous person, would be viewed by the teacher beforehand, who would then decide how to fit the speech into their curriculum, but not in this case. Education should be handled at the local and state level and not at the national level. Local and State governments know more
about what their citizens feel is appropriate education and they do have the authority over education, unlike the federal government.

It is critical that we remain not only educated in what our leaders are doing, but also be vocal as to whether or not we approve and especially WHY. Our education should lead us to an understanding as what our leaders are doing that right and what they are doing that is wrong / unconstitutional.

Now in closing I would like to paste something from another blog and then respond to it

A wise fictional character named Yoda once said, "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

There once was a great Man who got angry and turned over some tables and chased out the money changers. Good anger is what produces the energy to fix the things that are wrong. Fear can lead to anger, but
so can a righteous understanding that our country is not being lead in a direction that we agree with. Think about it don't get pissed off and do something positive to change what is not right. We the People
of the United States of America..... "One Nation Under God!

-Sarah

Utah Trip 2006

The main purpose of this trip was a Lewis Fish reunion while Grandma Fish was still is health enough to have a reunion. So although we had just been to Idaho the year before we felt it necessary to make the trip again, and it was a trip we didn't regret! We spent 4 or 5 wonderful days in southern Utah, hiking, around, chatting with family, and fixing the water line that came down from the spring to the cabin. We figured that since we had just been up the year before, and Chad had limited time off we would offer my side of the family the opportunity to meet us in SLC for a day, and then head home, not knowing how long it would be before we would make the trip again. We made it half way up the state when Ruth talked us into a slight detour to see their home in Cedar Fort. It wasn't too hard of a thing to talk us into, although we were really tired, we really wanted to see their cement home. a home design we have considered building for our family. So off on the detour we went. Once we were there and had see their home, Ruth talked us into hiking up to the water tower. Something I didn't want to do! We had done enough hiking, and the dusty rocky road or trail she wanted us to go on was right through a section of BLM ground that had just burned. We didn't have proper hiking shoes, but she promised us it would be ok. (See Sidney, I can be a lot like Ruth, hiking up to the water tower in flip flops is ok isn't it?) After hiking up to the water tower and looking for fossils, we were privileged to have dinner with them as well. Then we were off to Mary & Tim's for the night. The next day we met up with the rest of the family at the Olympic Fountain at Gateway Plaza. We spent the morning there, got some lunch and then headed off to Temple Square. Very fun packed day!

Idaho 2005

This is one of the "first" Stan Campbell Reunions in Juniper I remember, there really was not plan nobody was really was put in charge for planing this thing, other than the fact that mom wanted "sister pictures" in the same location that Tawny did the "Brother pictures" So other than doing the sisters pictures we did some family pictures of Beth and Trevor and their family and the some of Chris and Jose and their family, the a whole bunch from up pole canyon where there is no longer a swing anymore. I think the biggest issues at that time were dog fights, and Ben and Branden issues. You know temper runs in the families! I am so glad boys have a tendency to grow up!

Trips to Idaho.

Just thought I would document things a bit, since this is the best current form of my Journal, and It took me going back through pictures to get this straight I figured I would now document this. The first post will be the longest it is something I wrote after I got back to Arizona after going to Idaho by my self with three kids. (Esther I just don't know how you do it) I don't have very many pictures, because I was still using 35mm back then. After further research, I am going to have to dig up some pictures and scan them later on. down my well paved road to hell!

Andrew’s Summer Vacation
2001
On the road to Idaho and having a fun time, our first fun stop was Hoover Dam. Wow it was fun hanging over the edge looking down at the fish. My Mom kept trying to keep me down off the wall, but I couldn’t see the fish that way. So we got a security guard Hoover Dam Police to help show us around.
Latter that night, as we got close to Toquerville we got very antsy and excited to get to Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Fish’s house. My mother told us to settle down and not be so hyper. Grandma and Grandpa are old, it is at the end of the day they would be tired and we need to calm down. As we got out of the car at Grandma’s house I leaned over to Ben and said Remember Ben remain calm My mom just started laughing and I don’t know why. I had lots of fun while in Toquerville, We spent lots of time down at the crick, building dams we learned hot to play Monopoly jr., and Othello.
Grandpa’s V.C.R. in his bedroom wouldn’t play any tapes so I kept trying to fix it. Grandpa would get mad I don’t know why I was just trying to help. (The T.V. in Grandpa’s room is an old computer monitor so he needs the V.C.R. To change the channel. And even though the VCR wouldn’t play tapes, It would still change channels.)
A couple of days later we hit the road and headed up to Juniper Idaho. We stopped in Nephi for lunch we couldn’t find a place to eat that had a play ground, so my mom said we could play Frisbee when we were done eating. So when she went to order the food I went and got the Frisbee and started playing on a piece of grass near the drive through. I threw the Frisbee too far and it went over into a ditch. There wasn’t much water but there were a lot of very tall weeds and thistles. I could hear my mom calling for me but I really needed to get the Frisbee and the weeds were so tall I didn’t want to have to walk all the way back out of the weeds and then back into them again to get the Frisbee so I just kept doing what I was doing. I don’t know why my mom was so mad and scared when I came back with the Frisbee. She didn’t have to get it and the Frisbee wasn’t lost!.
It was sure nice to finely get to Grandma and Grandpa Campbell’s house. I was really getting tired of riding in the car. It was great to see Grandma and Aunt Becky again I gave them both a big hug. I really missed Aunt Becky the most. After things settled down I noticed this loud noise it was loud and I was driving me crazy so I went to find out what it was. I found locusts (cicadas) lots of them everywhere on trees flowers and in the grass. Oh they were driving me crazy. I guess I was a good thing it was time to go in and eat dinner, and get ready for bed.
The next day I was so excited to get out and play in the sand box roll down the hill and hike through the trees all with my cousins . I forgot about the locusts until I got out side I tried to ignore them but it just didn’t work very well. That afternoon I had, had it and those locusts had to die. Earlier that morning while I was helping Grandma I saw some stuff my parents have and spray around the yard, so that is where I went. It was up really high and it was hard to get but I finely reached it and was ready to go. I started with the Apple trees and grass around them, They were everywhere where should I go next. Then all of a sudden I hear my Mom and Then Grandma yelling at me to stop! Why I was just getting a good start. I was only putting a stop to that awful noise! As they took the round-up away from me Grandma asked what I was doing, (my mom was just mad) I told Grandma I was killing the locusts because they were driving me crazy. She told me round-up wouldn’t kill the locusts that it was used to kill weeds, which would kill plants and trees also. I felt bad and I was really sorry. My mom watered the grass down really well and sprayed the round-up off the trees.

The next day was a big day my Uncle Jim was going on a mission and it was time to say good bye to him at church. He wanted us to sing some songs, We practiced them a lot my mom even made cool pictures to go along with the songs. I knew them really well. But my cousin Oliver got a part messed so I had to correct him. Everyone laughed I don’t know why he messes up and sang the wrong words. My mom said it was okay when we were all done and that I had done a great job singing.
That afternoon Uncle Jim had all his friends over for dinner, I had lots of fun playing with everyone and avoiding my mom, so I didn’t have to take out from play time to eat. When it was time for bed I was HUNGRY!! I asked my mom for a peanut butter and honey sandwich, they are my favorite. She said she would make me one while I put on my pajamas. Well when I got dressed I could see she forgot to get the honey so I was going to help her. Man these jugs are heavy. Oh no! Move fast. Crash my head and my toe man that hurt.
I better tell my mom.
(Insert from mom)
Grandma and Grandpa have 5 gal. buckets of honey stacked two buckets high. He pulled one of those off the top and It hit his check bone right under his eye, the smashed his toe, he is lucky that is all that happened. He was crying a little but he really did calmly walk up the stairs and just tell me what happened. The buckets are somewhere between 60 to 80 lbs. And he only weighs 35 lbs. It could have smashed his ribs pelvic area or anything. He was really quick to get out form under the falling bucket.
Monday the next day we headed up to Boise to see my cousins Oliver and Bradon, oh ya they have an older sister Adrienne she is fun, but she does’t always play what we want to play and she can be bossy. It took us 4 hours to get to Oliver’s house, It was a long drive but I really wanted to see him at his house with his toys. Wow Oliver has really cool computer games, My favorite Motor cross madness 2! Why do they make me take turns, I like this game they get to play it all the time when I am not here so why do I have to take turns. With that response for some reason my Mom had my Aunt Beth put on a pass word and the computer was turned off. I tried hard to get past the computer pass word but nothing worked. Now Uncle Trevor says is won’t work right. And it is my fault. Why I was just trying to play.
We did have a lot of fun, we played with the water guns, and we were always wet. Aunt Beth let us leave the hose on all day if we wanted, it was irrigation water so we couldn’t drink it.
We got to go the school where Beth teaches, It was fun they had lots of toys and lots of sand toys, I love playing in the sand. We got to stay there until Wednesday then we went back to Grandma’s. I was getting tired of driving and being in the car, But I didn’t want to drive all the way home either.
Thursday night was Uncle Ben’s surprise party, it was fun They had lots of 4 wheelers out and giving us all rides everywhere, Grandpa took me on rides all over to. I had this figured out really well. It was time for dinner, everyone parked the 4 wheelers and went to eat, why I don’t know I didn’t want to eat. I wanted to ride the 4 wheelers. But shoot they took the keys out! Well there must be some way to get this to move. So I started pulling on handles and pushing levers. Wow look there it goes. Oh shoot I better stop it, dang it is too heavy I can’t stop it. Crash oh no that was Uncle Ben’s Car.
(Insert from mom)
We were sitting up back eating and talking and all the kids were playing and eating, Andrew actually ate this time, The cars were all locked the 4 wheelers were in gear with the break on, and the keys were not in them. Andrew was safe. Then here comes Angie, Andrew’s cousin

Grandma, Grandma, one of your grand kids just pushed the 4 wheeler down in to Uncle Ben=s new car. Nobody heard it but me. I jump up spilled my food and my shirt snags on the chair. I was just trying to get out front to make sure everyone was okay but I couldn’t. By then I had everyone’s attention, One sister was cleaning up my food and the other is trying to get the chair off my shirt. I was very glad to see Andrew not hurt, But the side of Ben’s car was not very good at all. By now I am a basket case, Call our insurance agent (who is our neighbor) and get a claim going and then it is off to pack I am going home, I have had enough I can=t do this alone anymore, and everyone thinks its funny, just Andrew being Andrew. Ben=s car is an outback with the long back window. If Andrew had been on the 4 wheeler he would have gone through the window and would have been hurt or killed. There were at least 11 other grand kids running around, any one of them could have been hurt. What was so funny! Well Dad talked me into staying through the 4th of July. We did end up cutting our trip by 5 days or so.
I was really freaked out, I couldn’t fix Ben’s Car my mom was crying and talking on the phone, and I really did feel bad, I didn’t want to hurt Ben’s car I just wanted a ride on the 4 wheeler.
We stayed at Grandpa’s a few more days, We had lots of fun One of those days I can’t remember which one Grandpa took us on a hike up Juniper Mt. to the relay station. It was a long hike but there was lots of cool bug and tracks to see. When we got to the relay station there was nothing there. Grandpa said there used to be a building there that would help relay messages across the country. But it wasn’t there now, I was so excited and now I just wanted to go home. Wait Ben found something cool, what could it be, oh it was just more bugs I am going home. I walked down the same way we came up. But now I was lost and it was really steep.
I was lost and didn’t know how to get home! I was scared, I was crying I was screaming for anyone who would answer. Then I remembered that my mom had told me that if I was ever alone, scared or for any reason I could pray and ask Heavenly Father for help. So that is what I did.
When I got done praying I was feeling a little better but I was still yelling for help. That is when Grandpa and Ben found me. I was so glad they did.
(Insert from mom)
Grandpa had gotten them up the Mountain following them and watching their tracks just incase he had to go looking for Andrew. When they go to the top He told Ben and Andrew to go check things out while he sat down, he could hear them and see them every now and then. And then he realized Ben was the only one there. He asked Ben if he knew where Andrew was but Ben didn’t know. Grandpa asks Ben to say a prayer with him and then they would go looking for Andrew. It didn’t take long Before Grandpa found Andrew’s tracks, they followed them for a long way, They Finley found Andrew calling for help. Andrew then informed Grandpa that Heavenly Father helps them because he had prayed. Grandpa then took both boys and said another prayer, this time a prayer of thanks.
Monday we went into Logan that is where we used to live, we had lots of friends to see and play with. Best of all we were going to be staying at Aunt Becky and Uncle Larry’s house.

These guys are the best! That night my mom was unloading the car I went out to help her but the screen door didn’t close behind me, ( Mom had it propped open so she could carry all the stuff in) so I closed it, I also pulled the door off the side of Becky and Larry’s house. Then here came my mom mad for some reason I was holding up the door so it would fall. I was helping. Larry did fix the door, He did a really good job and it didn’t take very long. When he was done, my Mom took two quarters from my money and told me to give it to Larry, Why my money, I wanted to spend it, not give it to Larry. My Mom told me that this is what Larry does all day, He fixes houses, by putting new siding on them, he even has to put trim around the doors and windows. And people pay him a lot more than two quarters. She said I broke the door and he fixed it, I should pay for it. So I took the two quarters and gave them to Larry, and told him I was sorry for breaking his door. Larry gave them back to me and told me I could keep them If I would be nice to his house, and things inside his house. I said I would so I got to keep my quarters anyway. Wow that was close.
(Insert from mom)
I was mad, quarters are one of the best things in the world to Andrew. I had, had it I wanted him to pay for what he broke, and this was a good time to do it, I wanted him to have a wake up call something he would remember so he might stop and think before he kills himself or hurt something else.
But then again if I was Larry and It was my nephew I would have given the quarters back too.
The next day we got to go to Aunt Kathy’s dad,s sister, I really had a lot of fun, it was great to see my cousins again. I swung and swung on the swing. I ask if they had any computer games that I could play. They did but, Kathy wouldn’t let me play. They had a pet bunny That I wanted to hold and pet, but Kathy wouldn’t let me close to it. My Mom needed to go see my Great Grandpa and Grandma Campbell. She said they were sick and I couldn’t=t go with her. I had to stay at Kathy’s. Her kids got really noisy I couldn’t find a place to find piece and quiet. I tried going out front and climbing a tree but that didn’t work, Kathy told me I had to come down and come in the house. Now all I want is my Mom to come back and get me out of here. Wow my Mom is back finely back.. Oh man she brought lunch. I have to stay here and eat lunch. I am not gonna do it I just can’t. I really don’t feel good I think I am starting to get sick! Mom told me it was okay to wait out front, and she will be out in a while. Ben and CeAnna aren’t eating, so now we get to go. We get into the car, oh wait, Mom has to take pictures of Spencer Kathy’s new baby. Spencer was the loudest, he just would not stop crying! Finely its time to go. I really need a nap I am just not feeling very well.
(Insert from mom)
Andrew was getting sick, I didn't know it, Kathy hadn't seen my kids is several years and didn't really know how to handle them, and all in all this trip just was not a good mix for our families at that time. Kathy did just have a baby and was taking care of three other very active kids that she didn't know very well. Kathy and I both have the same belief that when kids are together computers and TV/movies are not a good way for kids to socialize and get to know each other.
(insert from 2009 Our kids are all good friends now and enjoy playing together)

When we got back to Becky’s and Larry’s I took a nap, when I woke up I had a head ache that was killing me. My Mom gave me some medicine it helped a little, I slept again for a while, but my head still hurt. My Mom went to the store to get me some other kinds of medicine. I felt even better, but my head still hurt a little, But at least I could sit up and learn how to play Battle Ship. Wow that is a fun game! But as exciting at it is I think I want to sleep some more.
I woke up again and my head was killing me again! Uncle Larry is home I need to ask him if he can give me a blessing, to help me get better. Thank you Uncle Larry, I can really feel your love for me and Heavenly Father’s love for me. I feel a lot more relaxed now I think I will sleep some more.
Next morning, I still have a head ache, My mom is starting to get worried, because now I have a fever too, and from what my Mom says it is high too. She calls Dad they talk a lot about me. And then decide to give me Ibprophen aspirin and some Mt Dew. After a while I went back to sleep some more. When I woke up Alyssa, Zack and McKayla Murphy were there, my very best friend, wow this is great! Being the 3rd of July, Mom has lots of fire works for us, snaps,
colored smoke, and tanks. This is soooo fun. Side walk chalk. Bubbles, I didn’t know my Mom had so much stuff, and I didn’t know it. I am having so much fun, I have really missed Alyssa! Too bad they have to leave so soon. But it was really fun seeing them again. Now I just need to sleep some more.

Latter that evening my Mom woke me up so we could go back to Juniper We wanted to be at Grandpa’s on the 4th . When we got to Grandpa’s house nobody was there, so we just hung out and waited for Grandma and Grandpa, and Uncle Mike. Uncle Mike came home first, He had a whole lot of fire works. That really looked fun. But he said they were for him and his friends. My Mom had bought more for us to use on the 4th, I had to go find them. Grandma and Grandpa got home and they needed a big hug. But now I really needed to find our fire works because now I had to show them to Grandpa too. I remember Mom put them in the trunk of the car, so that is where I went, that is just after I found her keys, she always puts them up so high I really have a hard time getting them. When I opened the trunk There was nothing there, so I climbed in to make sure they weren’t clear up in the back of the trunk.. Humm I wonder what will happen if I close the trunk! Oh crap it is really dark in here and I can’t get out. I yell and yell but nobody hears me! What am I going to do now! I can hear Mom calling me in for bed, but she can’t hear me. I am getting very tired and it is getting hard to breathe. I really hope Mom finds me fast.
Cool she is coming closer, I scream and yell very loud. She herd me but she is looking in the wrong part of the car. Mom, Mom, I am in the trunk, please hurry and get me out. Here she comes, the trunk pops open and I and glad to breathe some nice cool air. And I am very glad to see my mom.
(Insert by mom)
Andrew was in the trunk for about 20 to 30 minutes. Lucky for all of us it was 10:30 pm
and it wasn’t hot, And just about the time I herd him, My Dad herd him from his room.
I was really glad he was still with us!
The next day was the 4th I was going to hike Blake Pine Mountain with Grandpa and some of my other cousins. But my Mom wouldn’t let me because I still had a bit of a fever. So I got to say home and play Nintendo, Which was way better than hiking. And my Mom said I did really good about staying out of trouble. That evening we had a big picnic and then we watched Uncle Mike and Uncle Larry light Fire Works! They did a really good job! I had a lot of fun just sitting on Grandpa’s lap watching them.
The next day Mom packed everything up, and said it was time to head home. I was glad to hear we were going home, But I was also sad to be leaving. I had a hard time going to sleep that night, partly because I was sleeping with my cousins, and partly because it was the last night there. We ended up getting into a big pillow fight, and somehow my mouth hit Ben’s head, and I lost a tooth. I had to hold onto it and wait until we got home because The tooth fairy pillow was at home. So she wouldn’t know to look under my pillow if I didn’t have that pillow.
(Insert from Mom.)
We were leaving at about 5 am and I didn’t think Andrew would be awake enough to remember to look under his pillow. I called Chad to find the pillow for us when we got home. My sister left a note from the tooth fairy about being on the road and not wanting him to loose or in his case swallow his quarters.

When I woke up the next morning we were almost to Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Fish’s house. I was so excited this was going a lot faster than I thought. That night we stayed up on Smiths Mesa in the Cabin that My Dad help build. I really like it up there, There is so much to do and see. I can go treasure hunting and find all sorts of cool stuff. I hope some day I will be able to find arrowheads like my Dad. The next day was fun, I got to help Grandpa feed the ducks, and I got a ride on the 4 wheeler. And I found a fort way up high in a tree that someone else made. This was really exciting for me. For lunch we cooked hot dogs on a fire Grandpa made out side. And then I got to help him make Ice cream. It was this thing that was really hard to turn and we had to turn if for a long time before the Ice cream was done. But It was sure worth the wait. Grandpa even put fresh peaches in it. That was the best Ice cream I ever had. I really wish we could have stayed longer at the Cabin but my Mom was in a big hurry to get home. She said she was very tired and just wanted to be home. I thought it was fun, I don=t know why she was so tired. So bright and early the next morning we hit the road again. Things were going well until CeAnna lost her last binkey. In Las Vegas, She cried and cried and cried, until we got to Kingman for lunch and them Mom went and bought her a binky, and us a basket ball and battleship game hand held electronic the kind I really like. Now it’s time to hit the road again! Mom says the next stop is Wickenburg, and it will be 3 to 4 hours! That’s okay I have a new game, CeAnna has a binky all is very good for a few more hours.
(Insert from Mom)
If there was a place to stop between Las Vegas and Kingman, I would have stopped and bought a binky!
Next thing I know Mom say Wickenburg just ahead, cool I am getting tired and I could really use a drink.. Mom gases up the car and then we go inside to get a drink. All of a sudden there is a lot of stuff happening and Mom is dragging me to the back of the store. Oh I see what is wrong, there is a stupid guy up there not listening to the store owner. Maybe he just does’t understand. I guess it up to me to help this guy understand that he needs to leave the store, that the cops have been called and he should leave! So that I was I did. I walked up to this guy and told him that the cops were coming and he needed to listen and obey, and get out! Before I know It my Mom has all three of us and she is throwing us in the car, and we are out of there!
Next stop the rest area on the other side of town. She says she will buy a drink there, I don’t know why she is doing that, she says it is always cheaper to buy the drinks in the store rather than in the pop machines, she must really want to get home fast!
(Insert from mom)
I was so scared, This huge guy came in and started yelling at the store owner, the store owner kept telling him to get out, There were a lot of other nice colorful words used in the process. I did get all the kids to the back of the store. I turned around and Andrew was gone. Next thing I knew he was up there with the store owner telling this huge guy that he needed to listen and obey! That is when I grabbed him by the arm and left! The cops showed up just as we were leaving.
Now to the rest area, it was fun I got to climb trees I got to feed squirrels. We even got to play a game of Tag. Mom got us our promised drinks and we were off to Mesa for our next stop! She said I would only be about 2 hours, but I don’t know If I could handle that, I have been in and out of the car for the last three weeks, I was ready to be done! So I opened my door I don’t know why I just did. Mom really freaked out stopped the car and really started yelling at me. I guess I should have never switched the child lock off. And I should have never should have opened my door. I didn’t realize it up we were only about 10 minutes from home. I guess I should have just waited!
(Insert from Mom)
I was in the Far left lane going 80 + when Andrew opened his door. I had to get across 3 lanes and off the road. Yes I was mad, I was scared, and I was tired! All I wanted to do was get home with my kids alive!
Finley home sweet home! How sweet it is to be home at last, My bed, my dogs, my computer, my toys, and best of all MY DAD! I think mom is really happy to be home too.

The Underground History of American

John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the
Year and the author, most recently, of The Underground History of American
Education. He was a participant in the Harper's Magazine forum "School on a Hill,"
which appeared in the September 2003 issue.


I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn't seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren't interested in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.

Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn't get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?

We all are. My grandfather taught me that. One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainty not to be trusted. That episode cured me of boredom forever, and here and there over the years I was able to pass on the lesson to some remarkable student. For the most part, however, I found it futile to challenge the official notion that boredom and childishness were the natural state of affairs in the classroom. Often I had to defy custom, and even bend the law, to help kids break out of this trap.

The empire struck back, of course; childish adults regularly conflate opposition with disloyalty. I once returned from a medical leave to discover t~at all evidence of my having been granted the leave had been purposely destroyed, that my job had been terminated, and that I no longer possessed even a teaching license. After nine months of tormented effort I was able to retrieve the license when a school secretary testified to witnessing the plot unfold. In the meantime my family suffered more than I care to remember. By the time I finally retired in 1991, 1 had more than enough reason to think of our schools-with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers-as virtual factories of childishness. Yet I honestly could not see why they had to be that way. My own experience had revealed to me what many other teachers must learn along the way, too, yet keep to themselves for fear of reprisal: if we wanted to we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old, stupid structures and help kids take an education rather than merely receive a schooling. We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness-curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insightsimply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids to truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then.

But we don't do that. And the more I asked why not, and persisted in thinking about the "problem" of schooling as an engineer might, the more I missed the point: What if there is no "problem" with our schools? What if they are the way they are, so expensively flying in the face of common sense and long experience in how children learn things, not because they are doing something wrong but because they are doing something right? Is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no child behind"? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not one of them ever really grows up?

Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products of a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from a secondary school. Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated.

We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of "success" as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, "schooling," but historically that isn't true in either an intellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughout the world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting to a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble prisons. Why, then, do Americans confuse education with just such a system? What exactly is the purpose of our public schools?

Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:

1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best. These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education's mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong. Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else.

Because of Mencken's reputation as a satirist, we might be tempted to dismiss this passage as a bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. His article, however, goes on to trace the template for our own educational system back to the now vanished, though never to be forgotten, military state of Prussia. And although he was certainly aware of the irony that we had recently been at war with Germany, the heir to Prussian thought and culture, Mencken was being perfectly serious here. Our educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is cause for concern.

The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again and again once you know to look for it. William James alluded to it many times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publicly denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s. Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land of Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to be brought here. That Prussian culture loomed large in America is hardly surprising, given our early association with that utopian state. A Prussian served as Washington's aide during the Revolutionary War, and so many German-speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congress considered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws. But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens 11 in order to render the populace "manageable."

It was from James Bryant Conant-president of Harvard for twenty years, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive on the atomic-bomb project, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany after WWII, and truly one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century-that I first got wind of the real purposes of American schooling. Without Conant, we would probably not have the same style and degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would we be blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000 students at a time, like the famous Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant's 1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and was more than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that the modem schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered between 1905 and 1930. A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but he does direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."

Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole.

Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in this country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same lines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. In time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending just such a herd via public education, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.

Tre you have it. Now you know. We don't need Karl Marx's conception of a grand warfare between the classes to see that it is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to discard them if they don't conform. Class may frame the proposition, as when Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." But the motives behind the disgusting decisions that bring about these ends need not be class-based at all. They can stem purely from fear, or from the by now familiar belief that "efficiency" is the paramount virtue, rather than love, lib, erty, laughter, or hope. Above all, they can stem from simple greed.

There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy based on mass production and organized to favor the large corporation rather than the small business or the family farm. But mass production required mass consumption, and at the turn of the twentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and unwise to buy things they didn't actually need. Mandatory schooling was a godsend on that count. School didn't have to train kids in any direct sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it did something even better: it encouraged them not to think at all. And that left them sitting ducks for another great invention of the modem era - marketing.

Now, you needn't have studied marketing to know that there are two groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than they need to: addicts and children. School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children. Again, this is no accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up. In the 1934 edition of his once well-known book Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P. Cubberley detailed and praised the way the strategy of successive school enlargements had extended childhood by two to six years, and forced schooling was at that point still quite new. This same Cubberley - who was dean of Stanford's School of Education, a textbook editor at Houghton Mifflin, and Conant's friend and correspondent at Harvard - had written the following in the 1922 edition of his book Public School Administration: "Our schools are ... factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned .... And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down."

It's perfectly obvious from our society today what those specifications were. Maturity has by now been banished from nearly every aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need to work at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscal self-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn to entertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to ask questions. We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the free. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, has seen to it.

Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.

First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoods extended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as a pre-teen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there's no telling what your own kids could do. After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.

A letter to all of us

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters,

We've stuck together since the late 1950s, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know that we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and just will not ever agree on what's right. So let's just end it right now while we can do it on friendly terms. We can smile, shake hands, chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and each go our own way.

So here's a model separation agreement.

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by land mass, each taking a portion. That's going to be the difficult part, but I'm sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy. Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate taste. We don't like redistributive taxes so you can have those. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. And since you hate guns and you hate war, we'll take the firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. But you are going to be responsible for finding a biodiesel vehicle big enough to haul them around.

We'll keep the capitalism, the greedy corporations, the pharmaceutical companies; we will keep Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have the homeless, the homeboys, the hippies and illegal aliens. We will keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, the greedy CEOS and all of the rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and we'll let you have NBC and Hollywood.

You can be nice to Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer anybody that threatens us. You can have the peaceniks and the war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we will provide them with security. You won't have to worry about it. We will keep our Judeo-Christian values. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley Maclaine. You can also have the UN, but we will no longer pay the bill.

We will keep the SUVs, the pickup trucks and the oversize luxury cars. You can have the compacts, the subcompacts and every Subaru station wagon you can find. You can give everybody healthcare, if you can find any practicing doctors. We will continue to believe that healthcare is a privilege and not a right. We will keep "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the national anthem, and I am sure you will be happy to substitute in their place "Imagine." I'd like to teach the world to sing "Kumbaya" or "We are the world." We will practice trickle-down economics and you can give trickle-up poverty your best shot. And since it so offends you, we will keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along other like-minded liberal and conservative patriots. And if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the friendly spirit of parting, I'll bet you ANWAR which one of us will need whose help in about 15 years.

Sincerely,

John J Wall

Law student and an American

P.S. You can also have Barbara Streisand and Jane Fonda

More Texas Blue Bonnets