What I want to be when I grow up.

I want to grow up to be a robot.

Educators and parents please train me to be compliant to the will of the experts who run our country. Please train me to be gullible so that I will believe anything they say even if untrue. Please train me to be ignorant of the lessons of history. Please train me to be unable to think, analyze and decide on my own. Please make sure that my literacy, math, science and history knowledge are low enough that I don’t question what leaders say. Please train me to be happy with less and less personal responsibility and freedom.

Please say you care about me even though you don’t. Please take care of my health until my usefulness diminishes to the point where further maintenance is in your expert opinion too expensive. Please feed me and protect me from the truth because I am not able to handle it. Please make sure my schools do not train me in the subject knowledge required to be able to understand what is going on. I don’t want to know, it gives me a headache. Please keep the bad news from me for as long as possible, I don’t want to hear it.

And most of all please take care of me always.

I want to grow up to be an American

Educators and parents please reinstate the education philosophy that culminated in the American Common School movement that made American education the envy of the world from the 1830s through the 1950s. Please eliminate the “how to” approach which has been a miserable failure and re-establish the rigorous content-rich curricula, taught by subject knowledgeable teachers approach, of the American Common Schools.

Please teach me through competitive practice that I can build on my failures to perform better over time. Help me gain the mental toughness and “can do” spirit needed to effectively meet the growing global competition for good, well paid jobs. Please expect me to fully appreciate America’s history objectively. Help me to appreciate the struggles and the profound luck we had as a people to be led at our founding by incredibly clear-thinking and committed leaders.

Please help me to embrace high standards of personal performance in all things. Help me to realize that there is no free lunch and if it is to be, it is up to me. Help me to appreciate personal responsibility and personal freedom as guaranteed in the U. S. Constitution.

Most of all teach me to continually question and analyze the pronouncements of our leaders to discern the underlying truth. Teach me enough that I can make my own assessments regarding the latest claim of those who want to take more control of our lives by creating a pseudo-crisis.

Adults please lead by example modeling the ability to set high standards for yourselves.

Teach me to be an American.