Chapter 4
Before I ever walked into a classroom, I was already on a path someone else had chosen for me.
Education in Illinois wasn't about learning—it was about sorting. From the outside, the schools looked like pillars of the community: red brick buildings with American flags fluttering outside and cheerful murals on the walls. But inside, there were two systems. One was public, visible, and filled with state-mandated curriculum. The other was hidden—coded through symbols, handshakes, last names, and legacy.
💼 One System for Learning. One for Grooming.
Children like me were split early—those from certain bloodlines were given subtle cues, advanced placements, and private mentorship. Others were siphoned into lower tracks, told they needed “extra help,” or labeled disruptive. These weren’t always academic differences. They were spiritual ones. They could sense the light in certain children. And some of us were marked—for control or for containment.
Teachers were often unaware—or complicit. Administrators quietly protected the reputations of students whose families donated to the Elks Lodge or Masonic Temple. I remember being told by a guidance counselor that I “shouldn't apply too high” despite scoring in the top percentiles. I remember being praised for creativity, then punished for questioning authority.
This wasn’t about aptitude. It was about compliance.
📚 Academic Tracking as Social Engineering
By middle school, the tracks were clear. Some kids got invitations to leadership camps, AP classes, and “gifted” programs that funneled them toward government, law, or academia. Others were steered into vocational programs or behavioral monitoring plans. For the girls, it was even more specific—those from elite families were quietly guided into beauty pageants, cheerleading, and social graces. The rest of us learned to shrink.
Some of the programs looked generous on the surface: scholarships, mentorships, exclusive internships. But many of them were fronts—early recruitment channels for secret societies, intelligence grooming, and political placement. The education system became a farm for future actors in the larger play.
🔒 The Programming Behind the Curtain
What I now understand is that this “two-lane system” wasn’t just about public vs. private school or high vs. low performance. It was spiritual and psychological warfare. Children were programmed through:
Obedience-based learning: “Good behavior” meant not questioning authority, not thinking outside the lines, and not protecting other students when injustice occurred.
Peer surveillance: Encouraging students to turn in others, creating a culture of distrust and fragmentation.
Performance-based worth: Tying love and success to grades, scores, and praise, rather than values or creativity.
The result? A generation who could be tracked, ranked, and steered. A population raised to internalize hierarchy as natural. A citizenry that mistook indoctrination for opportunity.
🌪️ The Schools That Broke and Bred Me
My own school days were filled with contradictions. I was a top student, yet punished for defiance. I was on stage in spelling bees, yet behind closed doors I was being taught silence. My teachers praised my leadership while quietly warning me to be careful who I challenged. Even the awards I received came with invisible strings—doors that opened into rooms I wasn’t sure I wanted to enter.
The “good girl” was a character. The truth-teller was exiled.
By high school, I saw how deep the pattern ran. My classmates were being drafted—into the military, into marriage, into missions of obedience. Some never made it out. Others became the very enforcers of the systems that harmed them.
📜 What the Records Don’t Show
In reviewing my own records decades later, I saw what they really documented:
Instances of “emotional dysregulation” (I called out abuse)
“Needs redirection” (I questioned lies)
“Exceptional verbal skills” (I was too sharp for them to dull without force)
I see now that I was never meant to thrive. I was meant to comply.
And when I didn’t, the second lane became a trap: misdiagnosis, character assassination, and the beginnings of legal entanglements that would follow me into adulthood.
👁️ From Classroom to Control Room
The two-lane school system was just the beginning. It prepared us to accept surveillance as safety, competition as worth, and compliance as freedom.
It trained us for workplaces that operate the same way.
It trained us to distrust our inner knowing.
It trained us to forget we are free.
But I remember now.
And I’m not just telling this story to reclaim my truth—I’m telling it so the next girl born into this system doesn’t confuse a cage for a classroom.
This chapter ends with a message to her: You are not what they wrote about you. You are not their scorecard, their diagnosis, or their file.
You are what they tried to contain.
And no system can program the soul that remembers it was never theirs.
