Top Gun was playing at the drive-in. White-haired viewers were wearing red, Make America Great Again hats. The hero of the original 1986 movie is a cocky 24-year-old, thrill seeking pilot.

Today’s MAGA Generation remembers a past that never-was; WOKE imagines a Neverland future.

Gifted, special education, special needs, I was MAGA’s teacher during their adolescent years. Here are itty-bitty samples of what the MAGA Generation experienced, on the dark side of American education.

“Those new books are for the good kids, you’ll find books for your dogs, on that junk pile,” the stockroom manager said.

“They’re already announcing teacher of the year, I just left the vocational school and they didn’t start voting yet,” a puzzled Vo-Tecker remarked.

“Those kind don’t belong in high school,” complained the principal where I was hired as a special-education teacher in 1963.

As unique individuals, we’re all gifted in some ways, stupid in others and we all have special needs. A true value education helps us find our gifts and fix what needs fixing.

Children learn what they live. American education is a caste system; with white collar pencil pushers at the top and blue collar outcasts at the bottom.

During Covid, while the pencil pushers were working from the comfort of home, blue collar patriots was suffering and dying to keep America alive. While the boys in blue were going through hell in Vietnam whitey became teachers to avoid the draft.

Schooling turns children’s American dream into a nightmare. The root cause of today’s conspiracy theories is the bigotry and prejudice MAGA experienced during their formative years.

Prejudice is warped opinions based on race, religion, culture, gender, job, education or intelligence. Bigotry goes beyond prejudice and involves extreme and irrational attachments to one’s own beliefs.

There’s more to bigotry then black and white. Our school system is a bigoted institution. Segregating students into A, B, C, D, E, F classroom sections is junk value bigotry.

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled segregating public school children is unconstitutional and deprive students of equal protection of the laws.

Joseph Woitko

Beaver Meadows