ENTRANCE CERE-MONEY: Some Thoughts on Intellectual Slaughter

IMAGE: Some mutant teachers standing during a university entrance ceremony

	In black satin robes of a funeral wake
	young students prepare for 13th grade.

	Withdrawing stiff papers from his coat pocket
	the dean delivers a commencement spiel -
	a boring sermon
	about the necessity of zeal.

	The majority of faculty
	gaze in to space
	or close their eyes to consider events far away
	as parents wipe perspiration from their heads
	a few more brain cells fade.

	When the speech is over
	Muffled applause is heard:

	Another ritual has passed
	and a new herd of sheep
	is ready
	to become mutton.

	"Oh Lamb of God
	who takes away the sins of the world 
	please slaughter them mercifully."


Melissa: (coughing) Why such a morbid view of schooling? Should school entrance
         be a celebration and joyous feast?

Liao:    Well, you can't have a feast without a harvest or slaughter. If new 
         concepts are to be created through learning, old concepts must be subsumed.
         I concur with H.G. Wells that education is largely a matter of 
         clearing away old cultural debris so that new understandings can arise.

Satoru:  I think many people have a one-sided views of life, focussing
         only on growth. It's essential to have balance and remember that growth 
         and destruction are twins.  Isn't that what Schumpeter has suggested?
         Wise teachers recognise how destruction and creation necessarily coexist.

Tim:     (with a flaccid smile) I'm not so sure . . . haven't we heard enough gab?


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from _Crassroom Voices - Poetry, Art, & Dialogs about Education_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY:  A satire about a school entrance ceremony and dialog about attrition & growth.
KEYWORDS: school rituals, educational ceremonies, school entrance speeches, 

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 1996 in Nagoya, Japan  / Finished: 2020 in Yokohama, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

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