Some of you listen to all the hoopla and hand-wringing over Apple's decline in education sales over the past several years and wonder what the fuss is about. After all, we're talking about students-- not exactly a demographic with thousands of dollars to fritter away on expensive Macs and an iPod or six. Most of the younger ones probably wouldn't even be able to qualify for a loan (although in this economy, that isn't a given; yesterday we saw a banker offering a 2.9% 30-year fixed rate mortgage to a cocker spaniel). So why the hubbub, bub?

Well, the answer's pretty simple: indoctrination. We believe the children are our future-- future consumers, that is. Get 'em hooked on Macs while they're in school, and there's a better chance that when they grow up and suddenly find that they have oodles of cash sitting around in rakish piles, they'll toss some of that green Apple's way for gear of their very own. Oh, sure, it's a pretty mercenary way of looking at things, but such is the world in which we live. We save the idealism for other aspects of our lives. Like sandwiches. If you want to make 'em right, it's really important that you start with a good, hearty bread as a solid foundation. Crusty is good; don't be one of those people who makes the fatal mistake of cutting off the crusts. You lose structure.

Okay, we seem to have wandered a bit.

But before the sandwich thing, we intended to point out that indoctrination probably works better the earlier you can get someone sitting in front of a Mac. Virginia Tech's G5 supercomputer does a great job of attracting geeky grad students to our platform, and that's all well and good, but there you're looking at a rational choice and not the sort of deep-down brainwashing that gets Apple a customer for life. Henrico County tossing iBooks at all of its high school students? Well, it's a step up, but even in their mid-teens kids aren't quite as susceptible to corporate influence as befits a really solid lifelong customer. The state of Maine putting iBooks in the backpacks of every one of its seventh- and eighth-graders is better still, but there's still room for improvement, right?

Absolutely! Faithful viewer Arne pointed out that in Canada at Peace River North, they've been doing this iBook writing-program thingy with seventh- and sixth-graders, which is really starting to get down into seriously effective brain-conditioning territory. The teachers, kids, and parents are thrilled with how the iBooks have improved "achievement, motivation, and attitude"; "in one year, as a result of this program, we saw students' pretest and posttest data scores improve dramatically." So students get better at writing and Apple gets a slew of 12-year-olds who are now accustomed to having an AirPort-equipped iBook around. Everybody's happy!

Of course, the next logical step is to introduce iBooks into third-grade classrooms, and, eventually, kindergarten. Sources reveal that Apple is working on nap-time alarms for iCal and virtual finger-painting software as we speak. It's only a matter of time before children are issued iBooks at birth; now there's some long-term unit growth potential. Bring it on.