IDEAL STUDENTS: A Heterotopian Portrait Ideal students don't need heads - just attractive bodies that are easily led Ideal students don't say thought-provoking things - they just repeat as requested and deferentially heed Ideal students avoid independent thought - mouthing desired rhetoric & fearing deviancy will be caught Ideal students make excellent soldiers, factory workers, civil servants & faithful spouses too There's simply one problem: behind their well-polished glasses & cleanly-scrubbed ears some of them are rambunctious & inquisitive & determined not to become dead. Satoru: So are passive students are "ideal"? Tim: (shrugging his shoulders apathetically) Well, George Orwell would probably say so. Melissa: By inverting this poem, the message seems clear. Ideal students are inquisitive non-conformists, right? Liao: Why do we need this notion of "ideal"? Is that concept necessary? Too often our thinking gets in the way of perceiving. Why not look at others without even considering whether or not the fit some ideal standard? ===================================================================================== from _Crassroom Voices - Poetry, Art, & Dialogs about Education_ by T Newfields SUMMARY: A poem about supposedly perfect students, image of a headless woman, and dialog about standards-based education KEYWORDS: model students, heterotopian classrooms, students as mannequins, standards-based education, perfect learners Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955) Begun: 2006 in Tokyo, Japan / Finished: 2018 in Yokohama, Japan Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted < LAST http://www.tnewfields.info/CrassroomVoices/ent.htm TOC http://www.tnewfields.info/CrassroomVoices/index.html NEXT > http://www.tnewfields.info/CrassroomVoices/cere.htm TRANSLATIONS ESPAÑOL: http://www.tnewfields.info/es/ideales.htm NIHONGO: http://www.tnewfields.info/jp/risou.htm ZHŌNGWÉN: http://www.tnewfields.info/zh/lixiang.htm