Preview
In a letter from 2062, Skyler Fusaro warns Jack about the grim implications of suppressing curiosity and dissent in education. She recalls the oppressive measures of the Second Trump Administration. She reflects on a future plagued by climate disasters and political repression, paralleling it to historical atrocities. Education has shifted from critical thinking to indoctrination, with banned topics and censored curricula. Skyler emphasizes the importance of reinstating justice and courage in teaching, urging action against growing authoritarianism that threatens students and educators alike
The Letter
Atlanta, Year 2062
Dear Jack,
You once said that science education was about helping young people learn to ask the right questions. Now, I ask you:
What happens when questioning becomes a crime?
I’m writing to you from a future that still bears the heat of your century’s decisions. The wildfires you warned about never stopped. The oceans rose. The forests fell. But more dangerous than rising temperatures was something slower, more corrosive: the silencing of curiosity and the Criminalization of dissent.
We remember the Second Trump Administration as a dark chapter in history. It’s comparable to remembering the rise of McCarthyism or the internment camps of World War II. As a time when fear was policy and truth was optional. In the schools, young people were taught not how to think, but what to think. DEI was banned. Science and university research were censored. And immigrants—like my great-grandmother—were made into enemies of the state.
You warned them, Jack. In The Trump Files, you chronicled how the state turned knowledge into a weapon and turned teachers into targets. But not enough people listened.
Here in 2062, we still teach. But it took decades of underground organizing to rebuild a curriculum rooted in justice, community, and climate consciousness. We study how the Earth changed—and how the people who ruled in your time refused to change with it. We remember the names of those who resisted, not just with protest signs, but with pedagogy.
That’s why I’m reaching out now. Because I see the outlines of a more dangerous world being drawn in your own. And because I believe it’s still not too late.
Tell them:
- That climate collapse is not just science—it’s justice.
- That banning books is the first step toward banning people.
- When governments fear teachers, they are planning something worse for students.
I ask this not just as a historian from the future, but as a student of your work. You taught us to think globally, act collaboratively, and teach courageously. Now teach that again—louder than ever.
Still thinking,
Skyler Fusaro
Educator, Ecologist, Citizen
Atlanta, Earth, 2062
Skyler Fusaro is a fictional character that I created in 2012. Occasionally, she reaches out to me. She issues warnings and makes observations about essential issues we face in the early 21st century. She lives in Atlanta, in a high-rise apartment on Peachtree Street. It is a mile north of the Realto Theater, on the campus of Georgia State University. She studied at Georgia Tech and Georgia State University, earning an M.A. in physics and a Ph.D. in History. She challenges us about education and the climate crisis in one of her letters. When she contacts me, I share her thoughts on my website, jackhassard.org. The letter above is the most recent contact that I’ve had with her.