Hunter Maats - The Straight-A Conspiracy: Your Secret Guide to Ending the Stress of School and Totally Ruling the World

Table of Contents

Copyright 2012 by 368 Press, LLC

ePub ISBN: 978-0-9858988-5-4

Kindle ISBN: 978-0-9858988-4-7

iBook ISBN: 978-0-9858988-6-1

Print ISBN: 978-0-9858988-3-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013943727

BISAC: Education / Study Skills

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Unless otherwise noted, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations or critical reviews.

368 Press and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of 368 Press, LLC.

At the time of this books publication, all facts and figures cited are the most current available and have been verified as of May 2012.

Sherlock Holmes silhouette p. 139: The Sherlock Holmes Museum, 221b Baker Street, London, England www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk

Graffiti font: Lars Hhus

Handwriting fonts: Kimberly Geswein

Scientific Research Consultant: Quinn Ho

Copy Editor: Andrew Goulet

Cover Design: Lindsey Gary

Author Photo: Keegan Uhl Photography

www.thestraightaconspiracy.com

Hunter and Katie would like to acknowledge the following people for their support:

For being there from the very start, through every page of every iteration, and helping us take this book from mere words to an engaging and creative visual experience far beyond what we could have imagined alone, we owe boundless thanks to Lindsey Gary.

For ensuring that every page of this book is scientifically supportable, grammatically accurate and in every other way ready for publication, we would like to acknowledge Quinn Ho, Jean S. Perwin, and Andrew Goulet.

For the reading of draft after draft (after draft) and for giving invaluable advice from the parents perspective, we would like to thank Laurie Abkemeier, Trish Babtie, Robin Steiner, Lisa Florence, Stan Rogow, and Harald and Sharlene Ludwig. We also owe a huge thank you to our publicist, the endlessly creative Kim-from-LA, for being the best thing since Mexican chocolate ice cream.

We also owe a special thank you to Bud Vana and Laura Weidman, our very first partners in our journey of figuring out how to help students fall in love with school again.

Thank you to Dave Holstein for his tech support, joke support, and for munificently allowing us to appropriate the top floor of the house for hours on end in the name of this book. Katie feels lucky to be marrying you. Hunter feels lucky to be able to raid your fridge. (By the way, youre out of milk.)

Thank you to the countless friends, family members, and near strangers who have patiently and helpfully listened to us discuss, share, and test out this book over the past few years, at every dinner party, birthday party, New Years party, backyard barbeque You are too many to list, and you have enriched this book more than can be measured.

Thank you to each and every one of our students, past and present. You have taught us as much asif not more thanwe have taught you.

And finally, we owe the greatest thanks of all to the people who have dedicated the most day-in and day-out support to this bookour very first and very best teachers, our moms and dads, Job and Peggy Maats and David and Karen OBrien. Thank you for raising us to be the type of students who love learning, giving us the confidence to take risks, pushing us to never settle for good enough, and cheering longest and loudest for everything weve ever done.

P A RT ONE

Worst. Idea. Ever.

Hey! Whats new with you? I mean, besides the fact that every moment of your entire life is based on a lie

What? Oh, waittoo soon? Well, we thought you deserved to know. Knowledge is power, and all that.

Thats right. Your entire lifeor at least all of the hours that youre awakeis based on a big, fat lie. The lie affects the actions you take every day, the dreams you have for your future, and your entire opinion of yourself. And to see why thats true, you need to look no further than school. If youre like most teenagers, you probably find school somewhat annoying. You spend your days learning things that you think youll never use as an adult. You feel like youll never get your parents and teachers off your case, because youre already doing the best that you can. And to top it all off, some kids just breeze through school, getting great grades and never feeling stressed. If youve ever had any of these thoughtsor others like themthen we can tell you, straight-up: the lie is running your life. You deserve to learn the truth. Actually, you need the truth, and quickly.

Most people believe that being smart is about being born with the right brain or being a slave to your books. In reality, its much, much simpler than that. And when you learn the truth, youll never be able to look at school in the same way again. It will instantly be possible for you to become one of the smartest people who ever lived. You just cant let yourself play victim to the lie any longer.

Actually, if were really getting into the nitty-gritty of it, the word lie doesnt do this betrayal justice. In fact, you are caught up in a full-fledged, centuries-old conspiracy. Yeah, yeah, we know. Usually people who talk about conspiracies are questionably sane and deserve to get strange looks in restaurants, but were not necessarily saying that there are creepy druids or mysterious government agents involved. Its not exactly like that.

What we will say is this: the conspiracy to which youve fallen victim is so big that we cant even tell you how big it is, because you wouldnt believe it. Its so big that its bigger than all of the other conspiracies that you know combined. Its like finding out that Elvis was an alien who crash landed at Roswell, assassinated JFKand then faked his own death to go live with Bigfoot. If you are a person who prefers math to reading, its like this:

All of these conspiracies have one goal in common: they cover up the truth and keep the public believing lies. The difference is that while the existence of aliens may or may not affect you (or even occur to you) on any given day, the Straight-A Conspiracy actively makes your life worseless fun, more stressful, and less successfulevery single day. And the worst part of all is that it has been going on right in front of your facein front of all of our facesfor centuries. And weve all just let it keep going.

Thats because the Straight-A Conspiracy didnt start with a big event like a UFO crash landing or the death of a huge public figure. It was far subtler than that. Centuries ago, a small group of people took some small actions, trying to help themselves and their friends get ahead. They never could have predicted how much the results of their actions would snowball, or how many millions of lives they would affect. But thanks to those people, an idea was born that became the root of the conspiracyand poisoned education for everyone.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

Genius. Giant-brained, unexplainable, awe-inspiring genius. What is more amazing than being a genius? Maybe you prefer the term prodigy or gifted, or if youre German, wunderkind . Whatever you call it, the potential to have an idea or to discover a skill out of the blue one day and have that special idea or skill bring you guaranteed fame, fortune, and a place in history books for all eternity thats the life.

Of course, part of what makes genius so exciting and intriguing is that most of us will never have it. We can all marvel at the inventive talent of Thomas Edison, the mathematical brain of Sir Isaac Newton or the musical abilities of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but we cant imagine being lucky enough to be born with brains like theirs. Genius is effortless. Genius is unattainable. Genius is only for a special few. And the fact that we all think this way is exactly why those geniuses achieved success that was so legendary.