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 Elijah Award Elijah Award
2004 John Taylor Gatto and Janet MacAdam Gatto John Taylor Gatto first burst onto the alternative-education scene on January 31, 1990. On that date, Gatto, who was drawing toward the end of a thirty-year teaching career with the New York City public schools, received the New York State Teacher of the Year Award. He delivered the acceptance speech heard round the world. Gatto's remarks presaged his subsequent contributions to the alternative education community. He candidly lauded home education, noted the crisis in public education, and traced the lineage of compulsory education back to the Know-Nothing era in Massachusetts. He observed that standardized mass instruction was a byproduct of factory-owning tycoons of the industrial revolution, who pressed for an educational culture of conformity and institutional dependence. In the fourteen years since John Gatto's remarkable address, he has fleshed out the themes outlined in 1990. These intellectual contributions are the reason the Gattos were selected to receive the Quaqua Elijah Award. John and Janet Gatto are part of an open secret in the alternative education community -- the fact that many alternative educators are former public-school teachers! Born in the river town of Monongahela, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, John remembers citizens rowing through the streets during the great flood of 1935. A tough, practical small-town of 3000 steel-mill workers and coal miners, its Saturday-night streets sounding with fist fights and its big green river dotted with coal barges, Monongahela exerted a deep and long-lasting impact upon Gatto. It was there John first developed his preference for candor, his appetite for new ideas, and his exposure to people from many different demographic backgrounds. In order to serve as an alter boy for a local Roman Catholic church, Gatto studied Latin. While working as a sweeper in his grandfather's a printing office ("a tougher taskmaster never existed"), young John had an opportunity to read a "dizzying variety" of text materials. As he grew older he played football, baseball, and basketball, sparred with his sister Joan, and became an avid patron of the town library.  John Gatto's college career took him to Cornell and the University of Pittsburgh. He ultimately graduated with a bachelor's degree from Columbia University. Following service with the U.S. Army medical corps at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Fort Sam Houston, Texas, he did graduate work at Yeshiva, the University of California, and Cornell. His master's degree was obtained from Hunter College, City University of New York. After stints as a scriptwriter for a film company and copyrighter for a large advertising agency, John Gatto sought more professional fulfillment. He became a substitute schoolteacher in Harlem, New York City, and spent the next thirty years serving as a teacher in public junior high schools. There he utilized his "guerrilla curriculum" to great effect. His career was capped by the aforementioned New York State Teacher of the Year Award, awarded by the New York State Senate on January 31, 1990. He received a separate New York City Teacher of the Year Award from a well-known foundation. Once John Gatto caught public attention because of his notable acceptance speech, accolades poured in. He was praised by a Nebraska Senator (Congressional Record No. 135), published in the Wall Street Journal, lauded as by the Princeton Review as "breathtaking, scholarly, and encyclopedic," described as "one of the world's most controversial education reformists" by the Western Australian, and made the subject of a Carnegie Hall show called "An Evening With John Taylor Gatto." Although some may take issue with John Gatto's ideas, most observors seem to agree that he has started an important conversation about education. Now a popular speaker in home-education and alternative-education circles, as well as a frequent television and radio guest, John Gatto has traveled more than two million miles since 1991. He received the Alexis de Tocqueville Award in 1997. He has also authored four books, all available in electronic form on his website for the Odysseus Group: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (2002), The Exhausted School: Bending the Bars of Traditional Education (2002), A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling, and the Underground History of American Education (2004). A fifth book, The Curriculum of Power, is currently in the works as of 2004. Gatto is also working on a documentary film about the origins and nature of forced schooling, entitled The Fourth Purpose. John Gatto's wife, the former Janet MacAdam, was born in Panama to Scottish immigrants Thomas James MacAdam and his wife, Doris Cuthbertson-Brown of Glasgow. They were in Gamboa, Panama, during World War II to help maintain the Panama Canal; subsequently they moved to Oyster Bay Cove, Long Island. Janet's mother was one of seven intrepid sisters who came to America searching for a better life during the Great Depression. Janet's father died at sea when she was eleven, creating difficult family circumstances during her teenage years. Just out of Oyster Bay High School she became a fur model on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. At age nineteen, Janet met John at a public swimming pool on East 77th Street. Janet inadvertently dripped water on a poolside chess board while walking past John, who was locked in mental combat with his friends. Although not yet introduced, John threw Janet back into the pool. Later that day, the two chanced upon each other again while attending an evening performance of jazz-man Thelonius Monk, performed at the Five Spot Cafe. They never looked back. John calls his forty-four years of marriage to Janet the "single best thing that ever happened to him" and says Janet is his "best editor, critic, and taskmaster." Janet Gatto is "a Scottish Presbyterian who learned . . . that unredeemed Catholics are . . . well . . . not going to be in need of overcoats in the afterlife. She's been working on my reconstruction ever since." Janet became editor at her college newspaper, ring designer, producer of dramatic audiotapes, Treasurer of School District Three, and an elected member of the local school board. She founded the highly-successful Weekend Market on West 77th, which annually raises about a half-million dollars for neighborhood schools. Janet produced for Lava Mountain Records, operated a mail-order antiques business, and maintained a mail-order library of classical radio shows. An avid cook, she earned three degrees from the Culinary Institute of America. She also participates in regular gardening and bird-feeding. Although Janet has at various times been challenged by Lyme Disease, severe arthritis, and breast cancer, she continues to press forward with the Gattos' latest project: creating "Solitude," a 128-acre retreat for home educators near Ithaca, New York. The Quaqua Society is pleased to honor John and Janet Gatto with the 2004 Quaqua Elijah Award, to recognize their study of the relationship between home education, the history of religious and ethnic discrimination, the Industrial Revolution, the history of Massachusetts, and the pedagogical theories of early government-school advocates. An understanding of these interrelationships is central to an accurate appreciation of the history of education. Some portions of this biographical sketch have been compiled from information courteously provided by John and Janet Gatto. John Gatto's remarks in accepting the Quaqua Elijah Award can be found here.
2003 John W. Whitehead, Esq., and Carol Whitehead John W. Whitehead, founder and president of The Rutherford Institute, is an attorney and author who has written, debated and practiced widely in the area of constitutional law and human rights. In particular, Mr. Whitehead has acted to provide legal assistance to parents and alternative educators. Born in 1946 in Tennessee, John spent much of his childhood in Peoria, Illinois. It was there that John met, and later married, Carolyn Nichols, his childhood sweetheart. Since their marriage in 1967, Carol has dedicated herself to helping John pursue his dream of founding an organization that would defend people who were persecuted or oppressed for their beliefs without charging them for such services. Carol remains John's sounding board, assistant, editor and best friend. They are the parents of five children. According to John, he wouldn't be where he is today had it not been for Carol's selfless devotion, unconditional love and faithfulness. John earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Arkansas in 1969 and a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1974. He served as a First Lieutenant in the United States Army from 1969 to 1971. He subsequently worked as a private litigator and served as an adjunct professor of law at the O. W. Coburn School of Law, where he taught a special course on First Amendment law.  Because John had defended a number of people who could not afford legal help, his concern for the persecuted and oppressed led him in 1982 to establish The Rutherford Institute with $200, his family's entire savings at the time. Since that time, the Institute, a nonprofit, non-partisan civil liberties and human rights organization whose international headquarters are located in Charlottesville, Virginia, has defended thousands of men, women and children whose beliefs have been threatened--all for no charge. In 2003 alone, The Rutherford Institute handled over 10,000 requests for legal assistance. Many such requests were from home educators, parents confronting child-protection agencies, minorities suffering religious persecution, and victims of improper searches and seizures. The Institute maintains a national affiliate network of over 700 voluntary attorneys, who receive training, legal research, case support, and funding for court expenses. The Institute also maintains a media department to educate the public about constitutional liberties. Like the Quaqua Society, The Rutherford Institute depends solely upon donations for the maintenance of its operations. John has authored at least twenty books. One groundbreaking work, Home Education and Constitutional Liberties: The Historical and Constitutional Arguments in Support of Home Instruction (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1984), is a classic must-read for anyone who wishes to understand the historical, legal, and ideological underpinnings of the alternative-education movement. Two subsequent books, Parents' Rights (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1985), and Home Education: Rights and Reasons (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1993), are excellent addendums to his 1984 work. The intellectual contribution made by these books was a major factor leading to Quaqua's selection of the Whiteheads for the Elijah Award. John has also published articles in eleven different law review publications and in such print media as the New York Times, the Washington Post and USA Today. His writing focuses mostly upon First Amendment liberties, especially the application of such rights to education. He directed a seven-part documentary video series, Grasping for the Wind, which focuses on key cultural events of the 20th century and is accompanied by a book and study guide. Grasping won the 1998 and 1999 Silver World Medal in the New York Film Festival. John has also been the subject of numerous newspaper, magazine and television profiles, ranging from Gentleman's Quarterly to CBS' 60 Minutes. He has appeared on such shows as Crossfire, CNN Headline News, Larry King Live, Nightline, Dateline, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Evening News, CBS This Morning, This Week with Sam and Cokie, Rivera Live, Burden of Proof, Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, FOX News Sunday, Hardball, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, National Public Radio, BBC Newsnight, BBC Radio, British Sky Tonight and Sunday, TF1 (French TV) and Greek National Television. No profile of the Whiteheads would be complete without a mention of John's most famous professional achievement, his role as co-counsel for the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against President William J. Clinton. The case culminated in a landmark ruling, Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution affords the President no temporary immunity from civil damages litigation arising out of events occurring before the President took office. Like the proverbial chaos-theory butterfly that caused a thunderstorm in America by flapping its wings in China, the Jones case dramatically affected the course of world history. President Clinton committed perjury during a deposition for the Jones litigation by denying an affair he had with White-House Intern Monica Lewinsky, an action which formed the legal basis for his subsequent impeachment trial. Clinton's impeachment, in turn, created political baggage that almost certainly cost Albert Gore a victory in Gore's razor-close 2000 presidential contest against George W. Bush. President Clinton was eventually forced to settle the Jones case for $850,000.00, pay a $90,000.00 fine for contempt of court, and surrender his law license to avoid disbarment. (Quaqua has no official position regarding the impeachment, the Clinton v. Jones litigation, or the 2000 presidential campaign.) John's aggressive, pioneering approach to civil liberties issues has earned him numerous accolades, including Christian Leader of the Year for 1986 for "outstanding service in religious liberty" at the Christian World Affairs Conference in Washington, D.C. He was also selected for the 1990 Business and Professional Award by the Religious Heritage of America Foundation and was awarded the Hungarian Medal of Freedom in Budapest, Hungary in November 1991 by the President of Hungary. Living in Virginia, a state with a rich tradition of constitutional law, political thought, and alternative education, John's commitment to liberty remains strong. "All freedoms hang together. To defend one constitutional freedom is to defend them all, and to defend one person's constitutional rights is to defend those rights for everyone. No governmental official is above the law. The Rutherford Institute exists to ensure that people are treated fairly in the courts and are free to express themselves without fear." John Whitehead was the first person to champion the civil-rights component of the "modern" home-education movement. He was one of the first to understand that the cause of alternative education is based not only upon free-market principles and pedagogical innovation, but also upon a commitment to ensuring legal protection for the fundamental human liberties of all people. John Whitehead became the first modern "briefcase warrior" for home education, litigating and writing to preserve parental liberty and home education. Many attorneys in other service organizations received their training from The Rutherford Institute. John's innovative legal and institutional paradigm, once the target of great skepticism, now serves as the model for numerous other legal organizations founded after 1982 (both inside and outside of the alternative-education movement). The Quaqua Society is pleased to honor John and Carol Whitehead with the 2003 Quaqua Elijah Award, in recognition of their innovative approach to defending those liberties which are of such crucial importance to all alternative educators. This biographical sketch for the Whiteheads has been drawn from information on the website for The Rutherford Institute, and electronic mail provided by Nisha Mohammed of The Rutherford Institute.
2002 Dr. Raymond Moore and Dorothy Moore (In memoriam 1915 - 2002) Dr. Raymond S. Moore was born in Glendale, California, on September 24, 1915. At age four, Raymond lost his devoted mother, Dorcas, to the devastating 1918 flu epidemic. Dr. Moore attended public and church schools in California. He graduated from Glendale Adventist Academy in 1932, and spent six years at Pacific Union College. His studies were interrupted by a flood that destroyed both his home and his construction business. To persevere through the Great Depression, he worked as a handyman by logging, milking cows, firing boilers, plumbing, and concrete finishing. Dr. Moore's first teaching experience was in 1933, when he taught remedial English at Pacific Union College during his sophomore year. He graduated and married Dorothy Lucille Nelson in June 1938. Dorothy Lucille Nelson Moore was born on a farm in Bruce, South Dakota on October 30, 1915. She was a Methodist and Seventh-day Adventist Christian of Norwegian ancestry. She helped her father at his dairy in California almost until she finished at Long Beach California Junior College and went on to Pacific Union College. Dorothy was California State Spelling Champion and Gregg Shorthand gold medalist. In college she admired Ellen White and became a respected student leader whose first concern was poor or troubled girls.  After graduation and marriage, Dr. Moore pursued a masters degree at the University of Southern California. He taught for two years in the public schools of Artesia, California, and was principal in Hermosa Beach, California from 1940 to 1941. On May 7, 1941, he was called to active duty in the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant medical administrative officer with the Ninth Corps Area Headquarters in San Francisco, California.Pearl Harbor resulted in a transfer to San Francisco Port of Embarkation Medical Section, where as a Captain over personnel and intelligence matters he worked in the company of a communications officer named Ronald Reagan. His next assignment was in New Guinea, where he helped build the 47th General Hospital. He subsequently commanded the New Guinea rotation Detachment and Casual Camp, Milne Bay, New Guinea, then was promoted to Major and executive officer in the South Pacific Medical Commander in Lae, New Guinea. He concluded his 58 months of active duty by serving as general staff medical personnel officer for General Douglas MacArthur, the famed home-educated military leader, in Manila, Philippines. After leaving active duty in March, 1946, Dr. Moore became Superintendent of Schools in Artesia, California. There he was invited to teach at University of Southern California on a doctoral fellowship. After doctoral study in college and university administration and early childhood education, he was called to Pacific Union College in 1947 as head of its graduate teacher-education program. He helped Pacific Union College upgrade and obtain state accreditation. Dorothy, meanwhile, distinguished herself in public service in California schools as a remedial reading specialist and as a faculty wife at the University of Southern California. She then became a faculty wife and Sabbath School leader at Pacific Union College. Along with her other responsibilities, she reared and educated seven "chosen" teenagers through college. In 1951 Dorothy moved to Japan with Dr. Moore, only a few years after her husband and brother had fought in the War to defeat Japan. The Moores helped San-Iku Gakuin College achieve status as an accredited, debt-free, senior education institution. The Moores also helped develop an Adventist school system for Japan and Okinawa. They implemented a "work-study-service" plan at the college in which all teachers worked with students, including the family of Senior Prince Takamatsu. In 1956, Dr. Moore went to Philippine Union College. He later went on to serve as President of Southwestern Union College. His program theme continued to be work-study, debt-freedom, academic standards, social standards, and home education. Dr. Moore also worked to achieve integration of African-American into Southwestern Union College. Dr. Moore was subsequently called to the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists as one of a team of five to help pioneer what is now known as Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. In 1960, he went to Loma Linda as corporate vice-president to share leadership in the transition to Loma Linda University. After a years of raising a family in Japan, the Philippines and Washington, D.C., Dorothy became the founding director of the Loma Linda University Cerebral Palsy Clinic in California. In 1964, Dr. Moore accepted the job of graduate programs officer with the U.S. Department of Education, a position which involved the funding and upgrading of master and doctoral programs of American colleges and universities. He helped colleges and universities save billions of dollars. The White House published two of his books. After moving on to a stint with UNESCO, Dr. Moore he was invited to be the founding director of the International Advanced Intercultural Study Center. This consortium at the University of Chicago included member institutions such as Johns Hopkins, Southern Illinois, Stanford, Tulane and Wisconsin. The Center studied indigenous people ranging from Native Americans to tribes in Lesotho. Dr. Moore met the prime minister of Lesotho, along with Ghandi's former secretary and the author of Indonesia's new language. Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore worked about 40 years together as leaders, editors, and authors for their research foundations. They helped form the Cedar Springs Foundation, which was later renamed the Hewitt Research Foundation. Since 1983 the Foundation has operated in Washougal, Washington, near the Columbia River. The Moores focused on early childhood education, school entrance age, and teacher-student work-study programs. Along with Raymond, Dorothy served as a pioneer in the resurgence of the old-fashioned home-education phenomenon. Reflects Dr. Moore, "God, with the likes of Reader's Digest, James Dobson, John Holt, Reed Benson, thousands of media, and all of you, turned home education into a giant movement." The Moores have written numerous books and published articles. Their most famous work, a 1979 Brigham Young University Press book entitled School Can Wait, was written during this period. This book is a classic must-read for scholars of the alternative-education movement. Raymond's authorship credits include thirty-five college texts. Beginning in 1983, Dorothy headed a team of carefully selected educational counselors who fulfilled the dream of helping families educate their own children legally. The Moores set up individualized programs for each child enrolled, creating units of study tailored to the child's interests, aptitudes and abilities. Now known as the Raymond S. and Dorothy N. Moore Foundation in Washougal, Washington, their program works with hundreds of families every year and has formed the basis for a "Malachi Movement" stressing family togetherness and work-study-service balance in schools. The goal of the organization is to make schools, churches and families more creative, efficient and debt-free in health, education, welfare and service to their communities. When Dorothy passed away in 2002, after a lifetime of service, alternative educators around the world lauded her contribution. We knew her voice could never be fully replaced. "I thank God, my Master Teacher," said Dr. Moore, "for giving me a special lady for 64 years who walked at my side during half of those homeschool years through sunshine and storm." In her absence, and with the help of a new wife who "selflessly" assists him, Raymond continues to be a tireless, progressive force in alternative education. His profound reservoir of professional, cultural, religious, educational, and intellectual experience continues to inform and enrich the alternative-education movement. For all of this, and more (no pun intended), the Quaqua Society is very pleased to present the 2002 Quaqua Elijah Award to honor Dr. Raymond and Dorothy N. Moore. Biographical sketches for the Moores were drawn from the Raymond S. and Dorothy N. Moore Foundation memorial page, the Raymond S. and Dorothy N. Moore Foundation biographical sketch of the Moores, and electronic mail provided by Pat Wolfswinkel of the Raymond S. and Dorothy N. Moore Foundation.
2001 Dr. Reed A. Benson and May Hinckley Benson The 2001 Elijah Award was presented to Dr. Reed A. Benson and his wife, May Hinckley Benson.  Dr. Reed A. Benson is a professor in the Ancient Scripture Department at Brigham Young University and teaches a thousand students a semester. He has written for a national news magazine, lectured widely, and interviewed with numerous TV and print outlets. A former Air Force Chaplain during the Korean War, he was the President of the Kentucky, Louisville Mission, for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He served as Branch President in Oxford, England and in the Israel District Presidency. The eldest son of President and Mrs. Ezra Taft Benson, he is the father of nine children and grandfather to twenty-four.Dr. Benson was the author of the first dissertation in the nation on home education, which is still in print. He collaborated with John Holt, Dr. Raymond Moore, Dr. Larry Arnoldson, and other early pioneers of modern alternative education, consistently lending his influence to support home education during its critical embryonic years in the western United States. He helped develop some of the modern conventions of the home education movement, including the very notion of state home-education conventions and "modern" home-education outreach. May Hinckley Benson was honored as Homeschooling Mother of the Year in 2000. She completed studies at the University of Utah, University of Maryland, and Cornell. With a great display of courage, she successfully home-educated her nine adopted children for fifteen years during the early days of the modern home-education movement. She is a popular speaker and a pioneer in the home education movement who has consistently lent her voice of experience and support. Both Reed and May are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The Quaqua Society is both proud and grateful to honor the Bensons for their profound contribution to the home-education community. They have been instrumental in helping Utah to have, at least to this point, one of the most progressive environments for home education to be found anywhere in the nation. Their tireless and uncompensated service has touched thousands of lives. They will never be forgotten. Biographical sketches for the Bensons were drawn from http://www.schoolofabraham.com/speakers.htm.
John Holt (In memoriam 1923 - 1985) John Holt passed away on September 14, 1985, before Quaqua was founded. Had Holt lived to reach his 77th birthday, however, he almost certainly would have been the Quaqua Society's first Elijah Award recipient. Holt receives honorary mention on this page because of his profound contribution to the modern alternative-education movement. Photographs and a biographical sketch of Holt can be found by clicking here.
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Caroline Cook Ball and Joseph Gordon Skelly
William Ball was the lead litigator who successfully defended Jonas Yoder's family and thereby turned the legal tide that ran at the time against home education. For over three decades, Ball was a preeminent litigator in the fight for parental liberty, alternative education, and free religious exercise. 
Bentley Ball. Mr. Ball was Joe's constitutional law professor during his second year of classes. Soon thereafter, Mr. Ball left Villanova to move to Harrisburg, the capitol of Pennsylvania, to take the position of General Counsel and Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference ("PCC"), an organization then composed of the eight Roman Catholic Dioceses of Pennsylvania. Mr. Ball represented the PCC in civil issues of statewide significance to the Church.