I have a lot of good memories from AMES.  I remember a lot from the West Pod.  That’s probably because that is where I spent most of my time.  The teachers in those classrooms can attest to that.  If you wanted to find any of the seniors that didn’t have a class, you would just check the West Pod.

But I also remember one time earlier in my first year at AMES, walking into the West Pod, and seeing a new bumper sticker on the cork board.  It said, “Fight Anti-Intellectualism.”  I paused and thought about what that meant- “fight anti-intellectualism.”

In Mr. Kessinger’s and Ms. Hadden’s classes, we talked about anti-intellectualism and what it meant to all of us.  Once, in class, someone was talking about homeless people.  Don’t ask me how we got on that subject, but we did.  I was listening to that student talk about the homeless, he was kind of poking fun and being facetious.

Mr. K looked at us, and then he looked right at me.  He said, “You could all learn a lesson about possessions and material things from them.”  He gave me a book to read, “Siddhartha.” He talked to me about Buddhism, and the meaning of life.  He encouraged me to think about what was really going on.  About what was really important.

What does anti-intellectualism even mean? I guess my basic concept of it is: a tendency to not think about things, and a negative attitude towards smart people, or intellectuals.  I have noticed this type of stigma, or negative stereotype, ever since then.  I noticed it playing soccer for Cottonwood, in some Cottonwood classes, and a little bit at the automotive shop where I work.

If you tell someone that doesn’t know any better that you go to the Academy for Math, Engineering, and Science, they are probably going to ask, “What are you, a genius or something?”  My boss at the shop asked me that- I said, “Yes.”

But that’s not the point… the point of AMES is to get you ready for college, and that means you have to think about a lot of things.

Dr. Church said something to me while I was writing this speech that I thought was interesting. He said, “If you do not think, most likely you are going to make bad decisions.”  That makes sense to me.  The truth is I never really thought of it that way. 

Most of the time I do things and think about them later.  Ask my parents, they’ll tell you.
The idea of “Fighting Anti-Intellectualism” has been in my head for four years now, and it is just starting to make sense.  I am starting to realize that thinking about things isn’t so bad after all.  I have convinced myself that being intelligent, or being an intellectual is completely ok.

I don’t know if I’m an intellectual or not, but I’m thinking about it.

We should all be very thankful of the environment that we helped build at AMES.  Anti-intellectualism is incredibly contagious.  If one student, or one teacher showed the least bit of disdain towards being smart, the AMES environment would have been ruined.  We should be thankful that we are all well armed and well prepared to fight anti-intellectualism.