Schooling Nature Poem by Japan Pathak

Hey! All you butterflies!
You ought to carry schoolbags on your backs!
And you should not fly freely here and there, this way and that!
Hey! You beautiful rivers and streams!
Do not meander, but flow straight!
And do not make a noise either: flow quietly!
Likewise all you fishes!
Do not swim any which way you please.
Swim in straight lines,
As they do in swimming championships!
Hey! All you colourful flowers!
Wear the same colour, uniform and dress,
As they do in school!

On guard by Satinath Sarangi (Sathyu)

Children listen with a lot of attention
Children see with a lot of attention
They have just come into this world
And they have so many questions to ask
Like
Why should guavas be always drawn round in pictures?
Like
Why isn't the death of a goat an accident?
Why are there firings across borders?
Why are there firings?
Why are there borders?
They are ignorant
They do not know that it is more important
to brush your teeth in the morning than
to give clothes to someone who doesn't have them.
The system is threatened if too many questions are asked.
If the answers are not approved.
So deploy a parent behind every child.
And for further caution,
Open schools.

Poems against the School

I dreamed I stood at the gate to hell,
And watched the sculptors there,
The clay they used was children's souls,
And they shaped it without care.
All were teachers, the tools they used,
Were shouting and verbal abuse,
And all of those teachers subjected those souls,
To ignorance and misuse.
Day after day the teachers toiled,
With a brutal and practised touch,
While all of the little souls' parents thought,
Their children were learning so much.
And as the souls were tortured,
In hell's burning, hungry fires,
Some became angry and violent,
And developed perverted desires.
Most became sad and then sadder,
Some shrivelled and died in pain,
While others grew up to be sculptors,
Their spirits to regain.
And I wondered, while I was dreaming,
Why others could not see,
That damage caused by teachers,
Affects society...
And why we have this system,
Of teaching tender souls,
That children have to go to hell,
In order to reach goals...
A system born in days of yore,
Made from philosophies,
Of men - who hated children,
And thought babies couldn't see...
A system from, "Utopia,"
And Mann and Jean Rousseau,
Where children, while still babes in arms,
Off to school must go.
I dreamed that I walked into hell,
And took my children out,
And when I woke found they taught me,
What learning is about.
Think back and you'll remember,
Your children taught you too,
In days before they went to school,
When they were taught by you.

Copyright School Mania - Adele Carrall - 2000

Teachers' Thoughts and a Mother's Actions

Had Edison Lived Today.
"This child's dumb and we're going to place him,
With others who'll always come last,
'Cause his constant, disruptive behaviour,
Is disturbing the rest of the class,
And we know that he needs medication,
For his conduct makes us quite aghast.
After all, we're so busy advancing,
Those children with such low I.Q's,
That they need undivided attention,
And the child's far too big for his shoes,
With his endless demands and his questions,
About subjects we don't care to choose.
And when he's not talking, he's dreaming,
Can't concentrate on what we say,
When we want them all to be learning,
Your mad son keeps on turning away,
So we know that he needs medication,
Get him off to a doctor today.
Just look at his big head, it's awful,
His reading and writing are bad,
Go away, take him off to a doctor,
His behaviour is driving us mad,
And we know that some good medication,
Will work and will make us feel glad."
Then the mother of young Thomas Alva,
Herself a schoolteacher by trade,
With the rare gift of great understanding,
Took her bright Thomas home... where he played,
And she knew as she answered his questions,
It was genius her son displayed...
To those teachers whose minds were determined,
That children should all be the same...
And the stance of those foolish schoolteachers,
And their system would both be to blame,
Had the world been denied his inventions,
Had his mom left them his brain to maim.
And this story is not of just Thomas,
Whose spirit his mother reclaimed,
For the clever, maligned young inventor,
Who went on to achieve such great fame,
It's the story of countless lost children,
Who all, due to the world's greatest drain...
Of young genius thirsting for knowledge,
Were condemned to a lifetime of pain,
By the world's worst invention, a system,
Which tries to make people the same,
A foul system of forcing, not learning...
Of society's loss - and its shame.
shame.

Learning

Young Colin was born very clever,
Yes, Colin was born very smart,
But although Colin was really clever,
He just couldn't master the art...
Of writing the alphabet letters,
In other than mirrored reverse,
And his teachers attempted to force him,
By making him drill and rehearse...
But Colin just kept on with writing,
Those letters in form so awry,
That they said he had trouble with learning,
And caused Colin's mother to cry...
She'd known from the time he was little,
So small he could only just crawl,
That her Colin was profoundly gifted,
He had no trouble learning at all.
Then pondering, reading and learning,
From every source she could clutch,
She removed him from school and from teachers,
And under her kind, gentle touch...
Young Colin was not made to practise,
Indeed he did not even scribe,
And she offered him nothing of forcing,
Or coaxing or orders or bribes.
Instead he was given resources,
Like T.V., computers and art,
And small batteries, wires, pens and paper,
And love from a mother's warm heart.
As Colin grew older and bigger,
His skills and his knowledge just grew,
He became a great whiz with computers,
And neatness when writing bloomed too.
But Colin would never love writing,
So profound were the lessons at school,
Taught by 'qualified' teachers of children,
Who'd taught him that he was a fool.