Kid's are Smart!

This is how I spent part of my morning. I was a guest speaker at a combined class at the Montessori School on the Rio Grande Charter School on Gabaldon Road in Albuquerque's North Valley. My little niece Amanda and nephew Ian were asked by their teacher Rebecca Gilson to invite me over to talk about working in government. This was one bright group of kids. It was really nice to see a classroom where government was being studied. I remember well my civics class at St. Pius X High School where we were indoctrinated to be members of the communist party by our teacher, Father Cushing. During the second semester he told us why Communism really didn't work. I guess he was right now that we see capitalism pretty much running the planet.

I hope that all high schools are still teaching government courses. It is frightening to know that most naturalized citizens know much more about our democracy than the average American does. The thing is, our governments history is really interesting and a halfway decent teacher could make it enjoyable for the class room.

I know that Father Cushing did. We appreciated him so much that we carried his Volkswagen into the building one day. He didn't see any humor in that for some reason, but he was still acting out the commissar role as I recall.