SCHOOL GHOSTS: Some thoughts about academic necropoli

Many schools are ghost-ridden
with echoes of muffled screams 

In their barren walls you'll find
teachers staring vacantly

With sarcasm some inquire 
"Is intellectual torture what you need?"

Others laugh cryptically,
"Forget about any intellect crap - 
Regulations are what you must heed."

Sauntering across creaky corridors
& musty, rotting floors
shadows of student-ghosts appear 
then vanish under the doors.

Gazing at them, I wonder
"Why do so many schools have
nightmares in such abundant supply?

Then I remember zombies make 
perfect citizens - isn't what why
schools are cemeteries in disguise?


Melissa: (shuddering) This talk is morbid. 

Satoru:  Well, it's amazing how intellectually dead some schools are. 

Tim:     Yet isn't that what authorities want?

Satoru:  I'm not sure . . . without curiosity and a willingness to challenge old beliefs, 
         both people and institutions fossilize.

Melissa: Fossilized thoughts – isn't that the stuff of civilization?

Liao:    It seems there's an optimum balance between open awareness and pre-programmed 
         belief . . . it may be inefficient to question everything, but if we rely 
         too much on pre-programmed information we're not so different from reptiles.

Tim:     Perhaps, but most schools program kids for passivity. In the long run, that's 
         not merely ghastly – it's ghostly.


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from _Crassroom Voices - Poetry, Art, & Dialogs about Education_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY: An image, noir poem, and conversation about fossilized thought, dogma, and creepy educational institutions.
KEYWORDS: haunted schools; mind-numbing education, dogma and fossilization, academic necropoli, spooky scholastic institutions

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 1999 in Taipei, Taiwan  / Finished: 2017 in Yokohama, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

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TRANSLATIONS

DEUTSCH:  https://www.tnewfields.info/de/klass.htm
ESPAÑOL:  https://www.tnewfields.info/es/fanta.htm
FRANÇAIS: https://www.tnewfields.info/fr/fantomes.htm
NIHONGO:  https://www.tnewfields.info/jp/goosuto.htm