Update, same day: And see third video below. It preserves hope for the future, despite schools.

I know that sounds like an extreme title. It is. Not that schools have to be this way, but, let’s face it, most of them currently are — and many were when I was growing up. In St. Edwards grade school, for example, Sister Mariel would be droning on and on about what types of kissing constitutes a mortal sin, or just how long you could be out of the classroom to go to the bathroom, or “pay attention now, because this question will be on the test” — and my glazed gaze would glance left, right, left, right, left out the window to the waving trees in the park across the street, the ever-mysteriously changing clouds in the sky, the free-wheeling birds; right, to the big round clock on the wall where the minute hand dragged through eternities. Waiting to get out. Waiting to get out. Waiting to get out so that I could dive with my whole body/mind/soul into learning about the world.

The mind-control didn’t work on me. Compliant on the outside, I daydreamed on the inside.

Or did it? I was certainly “obedient;” I tried not to squirm in my seat; I blushed when I got the wrong answer in front of others. In fact, I didn’t really wake up to my full self until my mid-20s.

Thank god kids are more rebellious now. Too bad we medicate most of them (see the second video).

Thanks to philosophers-stone for the pointer.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAZqMaBY2MI&feature=player_embedded]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1Q7-PY_m6Q]

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Update, same day:

Oh my, and here’s a student that the schools somehow were unable to medicate.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vYH8u1h2VU]