The School Stopper's Textbook

The following section is reprinted from the 'School Stoppers Textbook', a small section of the 'How to Revolt Handbook', the fourth book of.... 'The Blacklisted News', available for 13 bucks from the Youth International Party (Yippies). OK here we go . . . 81 ways to trash your school.

Liberate your life -- smash your school! The public schools are slowly killing every kid in them, stifling their creativity and individuality making them into non-persons. If you are a victim of this one of the things you can do is fight back.

This chapter is not written for people who are not yet sure whether school is good or bad. It is written for students that realize the way that compulsory education and grades destroy the natural curiosity so many children feel ... who realize how the tracking system keeps the poor people and minorities in our society on the bottom while keeping the rich and powerful on the top ... who realize the danger of teaching complete obedience to authority and who are fed up with the racism and sexism in schools. It is written for students who have 'gone through channels' trying to correct these problems and who are tired of helplessly waiting while the schools destroy more and more minds each day. It is written for young people who realize that because they are trapped in school they don't have a chance to learn what they need to know to create a free and good life.

Before trying any of the ideas in here you should think about the effect they will have in view of the situation in your particular area. Not all of them will be effective at all times in all areas. If you think of other ideas please send them to us so we can print them in future editions. (YIP address is same as Overthrow mag. in general section -sysop II)

--------------- WHAT YOU CAN DO ---------------

1. Get a syringe (minus needle) or similar device. Mix both tubes of epoxy glue with a little rubbing alcohol. You now have about half an hour to fill locks, door jambs, etc. before glue hardens. If you can't get the epoxy glue and syringe a tube of airplane cement can also be used although it is not as permanent.

2. An alternative use for the syringe is to pretend to shoot up while a teacher is watching. If they speak to you tell them you have to do it because school is so horrible.

3. Call the school and leave the phone off the hook. The way some (but not all) phone systems work this will tie up their phone for as long as yours is off the hook.

4. Protest U.S. aid to reactionary regimes abroad by defoliating plants around the school or by digging a bomb crater on the front lawn. When the ecology freaks complain ask them where they were when the U.S. was doing the same thing to Indochina.

5. Draw or paste something 'obscene' on pull-down wall maps or movie screens.

6. Get some of the punch cards that your school uses for taking attendance. Punch new holes in them either with a keypunch machine or a screwdriver. Then switch the cards with others wherever they are stored. If you can figure out the code the cards are punched by this has even more possibilities. You can often be just as effective without actually repunching the cards by redistributing them a few days after you collect them (particularly when they're used for attendence).

7. Start an information service to get new students opinions and warnings about the teachers and administrators before enrollment day.

8. Bad food? Have a good old fashioned food riot.

9. In gym classes or in hallways between classes have massive searches for 'lost' contact lenses telling people not to walk through the hall or 'you might step on it'.

10. If your school still has a dress code protest it having everyone do something disruptive that does not violate the code. For example, dye your hair green with food coloring.

11. Free all the animals in the biology classroom.

12. Write a 'consumer report' on the 'education' you've been consuming. Distribute it to parents at school functions.

13. Periodically have students go to the office to have some rumor confirmed or denied.

14. Perform citizen's arrests of administrators for destroying the minds of youth then telephone the police to come and take the criminals into custody. (This would be an excellent guerilla theatre action).

15. Rip off dishes and silverware from the cafeteria, towels from the gym, stencils and paper from the duplicating room, layout equipment from the art and drafting departments, tools from the wood shop, and light bulbs from the sockets. Give them to a needy movement group.

16. During lunch turn on and light all the gas jets in the science labs.

17. Demand to see your school records on file. (Everyone can see them.)

18. You can make a very effective fuse by inserting a non-filter cigarette in a book of matches so that it touches the head of some matches and will ignite them when it burns down that far. Then loosly crumple paper around the matches and cigarettes so that they are hidden. Toss it in a wastebasket or any other area with a lot of papers preferrably in the office. It takes about 5 minutes to ignite -- by then you can be on the other side of the building. Practice this at home before trying it.

19. Have giant coughing or sneezing epidemics in class or study hall.

20. Rub lipstick, glue, vaseline, or shit onto the doorknobs of the school's administrative offices.

21. Swallow some snake bite antidote then walk into the principal's office. The antidote (most types are harmless -- make sure you get that kind) will make you vomit. Do so all over his carpet, desk, clothing, etc. then apologize profusely.

22. Pick up some dog training liquid at any pet store -- it smells like concentrated piss. And if you can't figure out what to do with that then you shouldn't be reading this.

23. Remove contents of teacher's mailboxes. Print up everything that's confidential or interesting.

24. Leave notes and hints that 'Tuesday's the day'.

25. Impersonate parental voices and make irate phone calls to the office.

26. Make a super stink bomb out of Hydrogen Sulfide and put somewhere in the ventilating system. This has cleared school buildings for days.

27. If your school has a suspended ceiling (a ceiling composed of rectangles or squares resting on a frame so that the rectangles can be pushed up) you can put a dead fish -- or anything else -- above them. Or put it into empty lockers and glue them shut.

28. Put signs on your locker saying 'this locker will self-destruct if opened for inspection'.

29. Give your school library a subscription to a good underground newspaper from your area and insist that they make it available to students.

30. Print up false notices frequently using the same format as the school uses and distribute them to the teachers' mailboxes. Eventually they'll never know what to believe.

31. Make your own passes, forms, tickets, etc. or lift them out of teachers' desks.

32. Need a signature? Collect things that have teachers' signatures on them. Paste them all down on a sheet of white paper and either xerox or print up a bunch of copies. Forge when useful. (When getting started you might put a piece of carbon paper under the signature with the carbon paper facing down on what you want signed. Then trace over the name with a steady relaxed hand. Practice makes perfect.)

33. Do some revolutionary wall painting. All you need is a can of spray paint (red?) plus a little imagination and courage. Then write your favorite slogans on walls, sidewalks, blackboards, etc. If you are a perfectionist you can make a stencil, but that limits the size of what you can do. WEAR GLOVES or you will certainly get tell-tale paint on your spraying finger.

34. Are certain teachers or administrators misbehaving? Print up a rat sheet with their names and telephone numbers and distribute it.Now students can call up at any time and reprimand them -- 3:00 AM for example. Also you could order them pizzas ... plumbers ... think big!

35. Break into your school at night and burn it down. To get inside you can either hide in the building during the day and wait until the janitor leaves (know in advance what time that is), or come in later at night and either force your way through the door, find an open window, or break a window (see Monroe Mindfuck). If you use the latter method do it a few hours or days in advance so you don't get caught if it attracts attention. Be careful not to leave fingerprints -- wear gloves all the time if possible. Once inside make sure the walls will light well by placing loose paper or wood around them, or squirting lighter fluid, kerosene, or gasoline onto them. If a lot of burnable boxes are stacked in one area spread them around. Start the fire from the inside of the building so it will take longer before it can be seen from the windows. Make sure the fire has a way to travel from one burnable area to another. Of course you should wear dark clothes and know exactly where you are going when you split.

36. Get hold of a film to be shown at a school assembly and splice in parts of another movie of your own choosing before the assembly. A little imagination on your part will make for an unforgettable day.

37. Clog up the drains of sinks with clay then turn on the water after everyone leaves school.

38. Teachers often leave gradebooks, conduct sheets, and attendance records unguarded. Take every chance to help yourself.

39. Put up posters all around the school. To make them stick permanently use Pet evaporated milk for glue.

40. You could ice-pick tires as a warning -- but make sure you have a total enemy before you put sugar in their gas tank.

41. Start wailing in the halls.

42. If you can't find any skunks, let chickens loose in the school ...or pigeons.

43. Create the 'WEB OF THREAD' in your classroom. Have everybody in your class bring a spool of thread -- with extras for people who forget. Tie your thread onto something and pass the spools around till you run out, winding thread around everything. (It is best to pick on one of your more dullwitted teachers for this one). Expalin that you did it in the name of art.

44. Carry and pretend to sell oregano rolled in papers and aspirin with the name filed off.

45. Put Calcium Carbide (available in some parts of the country as 'Gopher- Go', also available in some hobby and joke shops) in a gelatin capsule and flush down a toilet or sink. Calcium Carbide reacts violently with water, quickly producing large amounts of HIGHLY FLAMMABLE gas and bursting pipes, etc. as soon as the water dissolves the capsule.

46. Ride a bicycle down a busy hall.

47. Save your book reports and essays. Give them to other students to use next year or re-use them yourself with different teachers.

48. Play with lighting and microphone controls during 'important' assemblies.

49. Flush things down the toilets (preferably faculty johns) like balloons filled with air, baseballs, M80's, huge amounts of toilet paper, etc. Then build an ark.

50. Start a campaign to have the letter Z appear everywhere as the mark of angry students.

51. You can short-circuit the school's wiring by taking a regular plug with a short cord attached. Connect the 2 wires with a switch between them. Plug it in, turn the switch on, and you've blown a fuse. Turn it off, pull it out, and try another. You don't have to use the switch, but if you don't sometimes the current will arc and weld the plug to the socket.

52. Set up a fake school and hire away the lousy teachers -- or put up notices inviting the entire school to a going away party for a teacher who isn't really leaving.

53. Read the school budget. Reprint and distribute a list of the stupid expenditures.

54. Take booze to lunch in a thermos and pass it around.

55. During some important test (SAT/ACT/etc. ) on each subject have some student who is good at that subject stand up and read the correct answers for as long as possible. When they're finished or silenced have someone else stand up and do the same thing. The test results will be worthless and it will have to be given over at great cost to the school.

56. Take down the American flag in front of the school and put up one of your own. The best way to do this is to lower the flag that's already up replace it with your flag and cut the rope about a foot below where the flag is attached. Then tie a slip knot around the other end of the rope that is hanging down to raise the flag. At this point there is no way your flag can be lowered without someone climbing up the flagpole.

57. Put alarm clocks in various lockers set on 'loudest'. Set the alarm clocks so they will go off about every 10 minutes then close and lock the lockers.

58. Have a group of people march around the school with a flag singing the Star Spangled Banner. If the administration tries to punish you telephone your local radio stations and patriotic groups and complain that your school is being run by pinkos.

59. In a class where there is a rule against chewing gum have everyone blow a bubble at the same time one day.

60. Many schools have automatic sprinkler systems which go off automatically when sensors in the ceiling feel too much heat. Find the sensors and hold up a match to them.

61. Persuade the graduating class to use their senior gift money for something useful or subversive.

62. Reprint School Stoppers Textbook in your underground paper or on a leaflet or buy bulk copies and pass them around.

63. Demand that all equipment being stored rather than being used be made available to students.

64. If your school won't have a teacher evaluation make up some forms and do it yourself. Compile the result and publicize them to students, faculty, school board, and community.

65. Use your 'free choice' book reports, term papers, etc. to read revolutionary literature and further the political education of you and your class.

66. Have a student lie on the ground. When a teacher comes scream 'he jumped' and point to the roof or third floor window. Mumble 'Fred dared him' or 'Maybe it was LSD.'

67. Make an address list of disliked adults in your school. Answer sex ads for them -- or order them a few gross items (C.O.D. of course).

68. Toss handfuls of BB's on the floors of busy halls, assemblies, graduation ceremonies, weddings, funerals.

69. Steal cafeteria trays or plates, burn large holes in them, and turn them into the school washer saying 'I guess the food did it'.

70. Leave phony letters of resignation from teachers or administrators on the principal's desk.

71. Get a small group to always carry screwdrivers and slowly dismantle the school.

72. Lots of bomb scares tend to break up the boredom especially during exams or on beautiful days.

73. Photograph teachers and administrators constantly -- even without film.

74. If you've got the nerve piss in your pants while giving an oral report.

75. Splice into your school's intercom system (from a remote hidden spot). Now you have your own guerilla radio station. Play on!

76. Drop large bottles of ether in science class.

77. Hang your teacher! Hang a hangman's noose from a tree - make a dummy and hang the dummy from the noose. Pin notes on it like 'Weatherbee in '73.' To add realism put holes in the body then let dilute ketchup trickle down.

78. Newspaper stands in buildings are usually left unguarded. Take out papers and replace with rotten comics or papers.

79. Put a rotten apple or stale sandwich on teacher's desk.

80. If your school intercom has phones that connect into the intercom switchboard, put a small magnet either where the cord comes out of the handset or in the part where you hear. If the intercom just has a speaker, put the magnet near or on one of the electrical connections of the speaker. In either case it will short out the system. It may take weeks for them to find the trouble.

81. Take the door of the administration offices off its hinges but leave it standing there so that when the principal tries to open the door in the morning it will have a slightly crushing effect.