As it happened, the teacher at this last school, Miss Lillian Madden, was nobody's fool and she knew a good thing when she saw it. She took my interest, about which I was quite vocal and demonstrative, and turned the class into a "space club" built around "Tom Corbett; Space Cadet", this being in late 1952 or early '53 and no Space Patrol material of the kind she could use was available. Now, just because I came in on a flying saucer doesn't mean that it was the last flying saucer and even at age 7, I knew the shape of the world. It occurred to me that this was for a reason. Now, at this school I discovered a wonderful subject: Science. This hooked right into my interest in space, it also brought with it, Mathematics. It occurred to me that Miss Madden was going to use this club to create interest in learning. This was great by me. I realized that if the world of Space Patrol was to become real, we would have to "get smarter" (what that meant in terms of what to do, I had no idea-- I was only 7 years old). and besides, why buck the trend when it's going my way? I know a good thing, too. I can take "yes" for an answer. The number of scientists who were inspired by Space Patrol and Tom Corbett is legend: Jan Merlin's (Roger Manning of Tom Corbett: Space Cadet) son is in the US Space Program. The co-invertor of the CAT scanner was a Space Patro fan.

Well two can play that game, and I have a Master's Degree in Psych (Rhode Island College; 1978), so listen up; here's the deal. The "academics" in the academy are just that. real academics and the things you can get at the Academy Bookstore are real tools. This is not Star Wars with all that mumbo-jumbo about some Force: This is real spaceman's stuff. This is much of the same material that Cadets Corbett, Manning, Astro and Happy had to know. The academic material here, in many cases runs from kindergarten to professional levels. If you are a proefessional engineer, you will appreciate the RPN calculator we have here. We invite teachers, parents and kids to form an "educational alliance" with the kid as the Patroller and the teacher and parents as "support personnel" just like in a real organization.

The trick is that I am putting these things in a setting that is interesting. Beyond that, I am not restricting it to any grade level so if you want to look at Math that is abouve your grade level. Go right ahead, I will approve, your folks will approve, Buzz Corry would approve. and talk it over with your teachers, they most certainly should approve and help you with it but even if you don't get it all straight in your head now, you'll at least be thinking of it and getting some of it so that when you get it in class, you'll have a head start. So whether you need help at your grade level or want to get a jump on the next. Never will such hard stuff come so easily. Go RIGHT AHEAD! Be warned, though like any psychedelic, this can be very addictive. When I was in third grade, I got to take home a fourth grade history book, I spent that weekend indoors reading it. i got a little past the War Between the States (Civil War). I even almost missed Space Patrol. When I got to middle school I discovered a world history book America's Heritage from the Long Ago. At the end of my last year there, the teacher let each of the students who were leaving take with them one book from the book cabinet. that was the book I chose to keep, and still have. when I was about 9-1/2 I was given a whole bunch of science books. The first one I started with was a high school biology book; not to mention how many science books I took home to read for pleasure. and I was and am by no stretch of the imagaination a study bug, nerd or geek (no more than anyone else since there is something each of us is geeky about), just very curious.

This is the way the system works: You get "overview" sections. Introduction, History, General and Basic. Then you get specific areas of the subject In the case of Mathematics, one of those would be Algebra, of which you get the four overview sections then you would get specific topics, like Factoring, Equations, Exponents and Graphing. The methodology is like this. I put in Google "saved searches" by topic. You open up that link and use the page to get at sites that pertain to that. This gives you a number of sites and you can find the one that works best for you. At the Bookstore, you will find items that you can use, such as a great scientific calculator. In fact, I am so impressed with what I've been able to find and put in the Bookstore, that I'm mad as all get-up that I'm not really any good at math. They look like fun to use and I use them every chance I get for what little I can do.

In terms of the material presented and linked to, It would probably take you a few years to master the material that is here or can be gotten from here. This is not only real academics, but serious academics. if you even do a quarter of what is here and have good study skills, you come out of here with a knowledge base better than 3/4 of the persons in the United States. Just the Math and science alone is scary. Add that you'll get some very good insight into the ways of the uniformed services, which most persons don't, and the language matarials that will be available and it's all over. AND it's available 24/7/52. no dismissal and no summer vacations if you don't want them.