This is from a 'zine called Drop Out decrying the American Compulsory Education system. They say that forcing a child to go to a school to focus on many subjects, most of which are of no interest to them, robs them of the chance to excel in areas of interest. They also take the position that the compulsory education system is a tool of conformity, seeking to create a homogenous population. I agree with many of their points and many of their experiences with school match mine. I think the education system definitely needs to be reformed, and I don't think it should be compulsory after the first two or three years, but I don't have all the answers. What do you think?
We, the students of the American Education Machine, in order to form a more perfect paycheck, establish silence, ensure insanity, provide for the common corporation, promote the general ignorance, and secure the Blessings of Boredom to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the American Education Machine.
We, the students of the American Education Machine will do whatever we are told. We will tolerate the most boring sessions of spoon-feeding, we will endure days on end of Simon Says, because that's the way things work around here. We will be happy to complete the most useless of busywork. We will allow you to program our minds in whatever way you see fit. Our free will and sanity will be at your disposal. We will not need confidence. We will not need dreams. As long as we follow the directions, we'll be just fine. We will study our formulas and memorize our terms for as long as we have to. We will turn over our disappearing days of youth just to get a head start on success. We will not accept anything less than an A. We will polish our college applications till they can be polished no more. We will be in the right place at the right time, and heaven forbid if we are caught cutting lunch, we will take a detention and take it with a smile.
We, the students of the American Education Machine will not question if school is meaningful or useful to our lives. After all, school is our life. Everything else is just passing the time away. Thanks to school, we will make it in this world. We will go somewhere in life. We want the highest salary on the block and hey, school will help us get it.
We, the students of the American Education Machine, will not care about poverty or pollution because that's not our problem. We will amuse ourselves with beer and television, always remembering the golden rule - schoolwork comes first. We will care about nothing else.
We, the students of the American Education Machine realize that school has little to do with learning at all. And we would have it no other way.
Bill Wetzel
