William Wilburforce called them "launchers." They were little devices to get the conversation onto the subject of ending the slave trade, and then ending slavery itself.

We recognized the need for a good Separation launcher in 1994, and even made a valient effort to devise one last year. But the implementaion failed, and I let it lay fallow for a while. Then on a teleconference with Separationists Lorenzo Gaztanaga of Maryland, Gary Nydegger of Colorado, and John Tuttle of Michigan, the idea finally blossomed into what we needed.

The next morning I wrote a new "Parent Responsibility Quiz" (PRQ) (see next page), got improvement suggestions from three close advisors, typeset it and made 200 copies for a home school curriculum faire where we had a booth that night and all day Saturday. One of the things we wanted to find out was whether taking the Quiz would nudge people toward signing our Separation Proclamation.

Let the results speak for themselves:

When a person completed the Quiz, we'd ask them if they had home schooled for a year or more, or less than a year. Then we would put an appropriately colored dot on a large display chart. This gives us a little more data:

While the sample size is small enough to give rise to caution about drawing firm conclusions, it appears that the more senior home schoolers are more likely than "newbies" to want Separation.

Wilburforce would enjoy our bottle launcher, the PRQ, because it involves people, it invites them to think about a serious question, and it will work for all types of groups. Finally, we have a tool for boothing success for a variety of groups.

If you'd like to try a Separation booth yourself, you can find the necessary tools in our "Booth in a Button."

This article is copyrighted by the Alliance for the Separation of School & State. Permission is granted to freely distribute this article as long as this copyright notice is included in its entirety.

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