In 1901, the last schoolteacher who taught the original history was told to stop – her lessons about the past didn’t fit the new narrative being shaped by those in power. She was teaching students about a history that wasn’t officially recorded, one that challenged the versions being promoted by governments and institutions.
This video uncovers who she was, what she taught, and why she was forced to stop saying what she knew was true.
Public education in the United States began taking shape in the 19th century, especially during the Common School Movement led by Horace Mann. His goal wasn’t to avoid education – it was to expand it. At the time, schooling was inconsistent, often private, and inaccessible to many families. Public schools were created to provide free, basic education to all children, regardless of social class. Continue reading
Clara Barton and her Red Cross colleagues have a picnic in 1898 in Tampa, Fla.
The office was quiet except for the scratch of a pen and the shuffle of paper. On Washington’s 7th Street, the Civil War was long over, but Clara Barton still lived in its shadow.
The North recorded about 360,000 deaths during the war, but only 315,000 burials. Of these, just 172,000 names were identified. Continue reading
“For money, some men will allow the innocent to hang. They will turn traitor… they will lie, cheat, steal and they will kill. They appear brilliant, charming and generous! But they are deadly! Such are men as Dimitrios.”
Americans, living in what is called the richest nation on earth, seem always to be short of money. Wives are working in unprecedented numbers, husbands hope for overtime hours to earn more, or take part-time jobs evenings and weekends, children look for odd jobs for spending money, the family debt climbs higher, and psychologists say one of the biggest causes of family quarrels and breakups is “arguments over money.” Much of this trouble can be traced to our present “debt-money” system. Continue reading
In November 1910, seven men boarded a private train under assumed names, travelled to a private island off the coast of Georgia, and spent nine days designing the financial system that would govern the United States for the next century. They represented an estimated quarter of the entire world’s wealth. They spoke for the Rockefeller banking interests, the Morgan financial empire, the Rothschild network’s American operations, the Warburg transatlantic banking dynasty, and the United States Treasury. The Federal Reserve was the outcome. But the outcome was never just a central bank. It was a permanent arrangement.
Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States by Howard Chandler Christy
There is a phrase that has become almost liturgical in American political discourse, repeated so often by politicians, journalists, and intellectuals that it has acquired the unearned weight of self-evident truth: America is an idea. On May 4, 2024, I witnessed Justice Neil Gorsuch repeat this claim – that American is a collection of “ideas” – on television while promoting his new children’s book. He is grossly mistaken.
The statement reflects a category error dressed up as profundity, and it’s a consequential one. The United States of America is not an idea. It is a nation constituted upon principles, and the distinction is not merely semantic. It is the difference between a wish and a covenant, between a suggestion and a command, between the provisional and the enduring. Continue reading
Few have had as profound an effect on modern scientific understanding as Sir Isaac Newton.
Many people are familiar with the story of how a falling apple first inspired Newton to investigate the force that would come to be known as gravity, and as he later concluded in his seminal scientific treatise, “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy,” it is this same force that pulls a fruit to ground that keeps the planets in orbit.
While Newton undoubtedly possessed a keen sense of observation and an insatiable curiosity that enabled him to make some of the most influential mathematical and scientific discoveries in recorded history, his prolific notes and writings – especially the vast amount of manuscripts that went unpublished until hundreds of years after his death – reveal a more profound motivation. Continue reading
My knowledge of the Federal Reserve issue goes back to when I was a young boy – BUT – what follows in this video below is a story that I have never heard. It is fascinating, but stay with me – as there will be far more to share with our students on this very subject.
Many years ago on one of my broadcast series – I covered the Federal Reserve act in a manner that few had ever accomplished. I invite you to visit The Mask of Dimitrios ~ the Establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank (December 23, 1913) for an amazing story.
“For money, some men will allow the innocent to hang. They will turn traitor… they will lie, cheat, steal and they will kill. They appear brilliant, charming and generous! But they are deadly! Such are men as Dimitrios.” ~ Editor
I grew up in a little town about 25 miles north of Chicago called Northbrook, Ilinois at a time when everyone treated each other with respect. We didn’t eat a lot of fast food. We drank Kool-aid, ate lunch meat sandwiches, PB&J sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, hot dogs, but mostly home made meal such as meatloaf, fried chicken, roast beef & pork chops, black eye peas, snap peas…
We grew up during a time when we would gather glass bottles to take to the store and use the deposit money to buy penny candy. (We even got a brown paper bag to put the candy in). You sure could get a lot for 25 cents. We went outside to play games, rode bikes, jumped rope and raced against sibling played hide and seek, Red Rover, Red light green light, mother may I, kick the can and yes the games got more daring as we grew…There was no bottled water, no microwave or cable tv, no cell phones, no hair straighteners… Continue reading
Homeschooling parents who learn alongside their children often share their enthusiasm as well. (LightField Studios/Shutterstock)
We’ve digitalized schools, but students are doing worse than ever. Here’s how it happened and why some parents and teachers are pushing for a return to traditional learning.
Americans love a good success story, especially one built from failures and obstacles overcome.
Think of Edison and his thousands of attempts to make a light bulb or of Abraham Lincoln with the string of political defeats that preceded his presidency. Their dogged perseverance has inspired countless others to keep going when the going gets tough.
Less noted are the successes that breed failure. Continue reading
Despite the rapid pace of the digital age, it’s still too soon to toss the paper and pen. Actually, you may never want to stop writing for good as long as you want to further develop your brain.
In an age of keyboards and touch-screens, some might argue that teaching cursive is a vestigial nicety in today’s classrooms. Even handwriting, much less cursive writing, is neglected in the national curriculum guidelines supported by 45 states… Continue reading
I never took “social studies.” To this day, I’m not really sure what it even is! But every year when we took the state-standardized test as homeschoolers, my scores – as well as those of my siblings – came back in the 90th percentile or higher for all subjects, including social studies. This had nothing to do with luck or even smarts, but it had everything to do with the fact that we didn’t waste time on the social studies curriculum taught in schools in the first place.
If we were finishing up the school year in the spring and encountered an unseasonably warm day, we wouldn’t even crack open the books that day. As homeschoolers, we didn’t take off school for the bad weather, we took off for the good weather. We started our semester later and ended it earlier than our public school counterparts. Continue reading
Portrait of James Madison, circa 1805–1807, by Gilbert Stuart. James Madison, originally a Federalist, worked hard to ensure that Antifederalists’ complaints about the Constitution would be addressed.
Less than three years after the Treaty of Paris ended America’s War for Independence in 1783, the infant nation still struggled to find its footing. Great Britain’s overreach of power – its writs of assistance, quartering of troops, and lack of jury trials – was still fresh in Americans’ memories, making many wary of concentrating too much authority in a centralized government. Yet it had become clear that the new nation’s Articles of Confederation were too weak to command order among the 13 states. Something had to be done. Continue reading
The fire had burned down to a bed of glowing coals that night, the way fires do when the wood has settled into embers and the heat rises steady and quiet. My grandkids sat around me in a loose circle, wrapped in blankets, their faces flickering with amber light, their eyes wide the way young eyes get when they sense that the old man is about to say something he’s never said before. The cicadas hummed in the trees, and the air smelled of maple and river birch smoke, and for a moment I felt the years folding in on themselves – all the decades I’ve lived in Murfreesboro, all the changes I’ve watched come and go, all the things I’ve held in my chest because no one seemed to want to hear them.
Nights like this don’t come often anymore – nights when the world slows down long enough for an old man to speak and for children to listen… Continue reading
Most Americans have no idea their state has a constitution. They cannot name a single right it protects. Ask where their rights come from, and they will either plead the fifth or point to the federal Bill of Rights. What they do not know is that colonies first, then states, had declarations of rights before the federal government existed, often more expansive than anything the federal document would guarantee. Continue reading
Parents of school-age children often see the same puzzle at home and at school: a capable kid hesitates, melts down over mistakes, or waits to be rescued. The tension is real, adult support can steady children’s emotional development, but too much steering can quietly teach doubt. Child self-confidence matters because it becomes the engine behind lifelong success traits like persistence, decision-making, and healthy risk-taking. With the right parental support strategies, confidence grows into everyday independence. Continue reading
