The MCISD was livid.
Absolutely livid.
Because Mom did exactly what I told her to do and to trust her now ruffled instincts. What I had told her to do is to check the "The Magic Box" on the IEP form that stated she didn't agree with the MCISD and wishes to terminate all involvement with the MCISD so that I could go back to the general education pool switching classes every hour on the hour just like everybody else. And the MCISD was livid. Because one child was escaping the plantation, and that meant whatever funding they would receive for that child from the State would then go completely to the Monroe High School instead of them. Unless they could pull a fast one where they'd "split the stork" so to speak. And that's what they did ... and that's what my Mother and I agreed to. Much to our chagrin later. What the MCISD proposed was a deal where I would keep the same school counselor instead of the overloaded counselors of the district. They argued that I would be better served that way since their counselors and I had built a rapport over the previous 7 years which I would have to start all over anew with a new counselor. Instead of having somebody familiar.
Okay. What the fuck ever.
So, Mr. Moffit remained my counselor for the coming school year. But the remainder of this year was going to be trouble. Because they knew that no matter what. No matter if I did my boring ass school work that I already knew how to do or didn't do it at all, I was gone gone gone come June. And my teacher Ms. Koski never ceased to voice her displeasure, and upon the next year whenever I passed by her class, she would always have something snide to say such as, "You'll never make it out there. I'll be seeing you back here soon enough!" And so when I got my first semester report card -- which had been nothing but all E's and F's since 1984 or so despite getting passed to the next grade -- I saw that it was time to stick it to the bitch ... and so I did. Because my lowest grade for that semester was a B-, and Ms. Koski needed eat her own fucking words. And then when I got home and showed it to my Mom, I simply said, "Told ya so!" and she was shocked. All As and Bs for the first half of the year! Then I told her the bad news, "I'm quitting in January when I hit 16 because they don't know many credits I got because of Martha's incompetence, and therefore don't know how many I need. They have projected that I won't graduate until 1994 and 1996 and here it's the middle of 1991. You're a bingo addict. Dad's a drunk. I'm tired of starving. I'm going into the workforce come next Spring. You've got your addictions. I've got my stomach."
The only person that cried over it was Mr. Weiss - my science teacher.
Cried because he knew how badly the school system put the stretch marks behind my ears. Cried because he knew John Taylor Gatto had planted the seeds of my unschooling ... and therefore my true education and salvation.
In 2003, just after my Father passed away and my daughter turned 2 years old, those seeds germinated when I had discovered that John Taylor Gatto's book "The Underground History Of American Education" was free to read online. The man whose essay "I Quit, I Think" inspired me to escape the MCISD and ultimately to quit "school" for the sake of my education, had not only offered his book online free of charge to read, but also had a more recent and longer essay entitled "The 7 Lesson School Teacher" and it was this essay to lead me to go scouring for his actual book to read online in its entirety via good ol' fashioned dial up ...
If you can float the hefty price for a used hardcover, do so.
The recent paperback reprint cuts about 100 pages in length.
Now, did I believe everything Gatto said hook, line, and sinker?
No, he loses me at free-market Ayn Randian idealism and bringing back the concept of God ...
Everything else he had to say -- 90% of it in total -- hits the nail right on the head!
Here is that essay in its entirety ... and I'll see you later in Part 3!
This part is deliberately short because you may want to graze on Gatto’s essay for few days. Read it and re-read it. I’ll be quoting much of his book from here on out since its the only source material I have access to and I need some time to re-read it all over again, and make screen shots of the relevant parts …