It’s Monday again, how quickly it seems to come around. I for one enjoy Monday for several reasons, the first being it is the first of the week and business stats up after the weekend droll of being shut down. One of my favorite things about Monday is John Skipper’s column; that’s my first read. John is a terrific writer, make no mistake about that.
Today he wrote about politics and at what age does someone show interest. He goes on to say it is a “learned” thing, and on that point he is correct. Politic’s are learned at the table in the home right along side of prejudice and bigotry. We learn a lot at the kitchen table, and not all of it is good, in fact if the truth were to be known, most of it was far from right….if we’re telling the truth.
I went to school with a very bright guy named Paul Richer; he was Jewish, not that that anything to do with his intellect, it just happened to be. He became a school teacher when he finished college, and his first job was in Riceville, Iowa. While teaching there he conducted an experiment of prejudice, it went something like this; All of the kids who sat on one side of the room were denied recess, they couldn’t go outside for that customary break, they had to stay inside. Furthermore they were denied the right to drink from the water fountain in the hallway.
Paul’s experiment at the time attracted national attention resulting in I believe an appearance on a national television talk show along with an article in a nationally known publication called “Pageant” magazine. All of this got him fired. Did he get fired because he was inept, or not bright enough, no, he got fired because he was a Jew and this was Riceville, Iowa and there was not going to be Jews living there…especially one that was in the school system that might make as difference from what these children were taught at home around that proverbial table where not all was always right, or even close to it.
All of what I write about can be found in the archives of the Globe Gazette. It has been over fifty years so my memory might be a bit dull on parts of it, to that I concede; but that part about the kitchen table……on that I stand firm.
Peter Children
