I don’t want war or chaos or terror or anything. It’s a bit reactionary, but I want educators and students to know why we really go to school in America. Nobody remembers. Everyone thinks its for getting a good job so you can have NICE THINGS. Even a kid would know you don’t need a job to have nice things, just a credit card.

This fall I will anonymously mail a letter to every school whose address I can find, until I run out of stamps. The letter will say this, and anyone so inclined has my permission to do the same thing and use what I wrote, but only for the same purpose I intend:

A BILL FOR THE MORE GENERAL DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE
Thomas Jefferson, 1779

SECTION I. Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy,
yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time,
and by slow operations,
perverted it into tyranny;

and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be,
to illuminate as far as practicable,
the minds of the people at large,

and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts,
which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries,
they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes,
and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson

DEMYSTIFIED IN 2011 TERMS:

Even though some forms of government are better constructed than others at ensuring protection of the rights of the individual, and appear to be secure and long-enduring,

experience has shown that, even under the best of circumstances, those entrusted with power have, in time, and through gradual, sneaky methods,

eventually grown corrupt and used their power against their own people.

We believe the most effective prevention of this corruption would be,
to educate as much as possible,
the minds of all American people.

We especially need to teach them facts about other travesties against human rights in which this has happened in history, in other times and countries.
That way, kids will grow to recognize the signs of corruption and call out when a person or system in power has gotten out of control
so they can defeat corruption before it becomes tyranny or anything else that threatens our liberty.

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHERS:
When a child asks, “Why do we have to go to school?” you must never, ever tell them, “So you can get a good job and have nice things when you grow up.”

You must tell them, “Because America is a free country, but we will only stay free if everybody learns as much as they can so they won’t need other people to tell them what to do.”

We must not teach as a means for “things.” We must teach as a means to sustain American liberty.

Your job performance, like a soldier’s, directly contributes to how many more generations of Americans will live in a free country. Do we want to live under a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, if the people do not know anything or care to know anything?

And if the people do not know anything, how long can it last? How long can ignorant men and women hold on to a treasure so great as our country and our freedom?

IMPLICATIONS FOR LEGISLATORS:
Education should not be the first department on the chopping block when budget restrictions happen. You slowly, incrementally compromise homeland security whenever you take funding away from schools.

Schools are not a warehouse in which working parents store their young for six hours a day so they can go to work. Schools are not free daycare. Schools are our founding fathers’ internal plan of enduring resistance against threats to liberty, one which has largely demonstrated its effectiveness for two centuries. They deserve to be funded as such, for everyone’s best interest.

If nobody reads it or cares about it, that’s basically expected, but it will still count as completed. The second requirement of completing this goal is successfully becoming a teacher, so I can directly participate in illumination of the minds of Americans, rebuilding as much of the world as I can from its NICE-THINGS wreckage into a new reverence for freedom and knowledge.