I asked myself how Mao was able to control hundreds of millions of people the way he did.  I came across the answer in his own words:  “The outstanding thing about China’s 600 millions of people is that they are ‘poor and blank’.”  ‘Poor’ made them hungry for change, and ‘blank’ made it possible to write the message of his choosing on their hearts.

Our economic problems are pushing more of our population to the ‘poor’ category.  But my greater concern is how ‘blank’ are we?  History is a vanishing subject in our schools.  Because of test demands, there is little time to read literature in school.  Our kids are spending mindless hours playing video games and texting.  Storylines in movies are being replaced with action and visual images.  TV is filled with reality shows and lots of talking, but little story.

And now we see the barrage of stories being written on those blank pages:  Capitalism is evil. Our planet is dying. Communism cares more about people than profits. Liberty is license to do whatever we want. The purpose of education is to create global workers in a global economy.  There is no Deity, we need to save ourselves.  We weren’t created, we evolved.  Moral codes are subject to change.  Our Founders were hypocritical slave holders.  America needs to apologize to the world for our arrogance.  And the list goes on and on.

Arming our children with stories, especially from history, keeps our children from being blank slates for others to write on.  It’s our greatest  line of defense .

Marlene Peterson is the founder of Libraries of Hope. She is the mother of eight daughters and one son and a grandmother of four. She earned a BS in Child Development and Family Relations.