Textbook

Locations

the front porch of my now successful home where i wrote this poem.
2715 autumn ridge Dr. unit 2
United States
34° 12' 57.2364" N, 118° 48' 48.8952" W

The principal brought me into his office. I was a bad student for a day.

I spent my time there in awkward silence as the principle took me through the actions today.

I ran off of campus at the ripe age of twelve. alone, and without surveillance.

He said My “frustrations” were insensitive and “disobedient”.

 

His eyes stared coldly at mine, but behind it concern was on his mind.

I wasn't fitting in, I was doing ok but not well,

I had potential, but disinterest with unlocking it and becoming successful.

 

He asked me toward the end of his lecture to explain why I had ran,

why I left economics half way through the sad lecture from the textbook manufacturer.

Seriously, Mcgraw-Hill; government, edition 4, section 3.11-2 slide 34....out of 50

 

My reply was born of emotion, but remarkably stone.

Built of responses, rapport, and rebuttals.

Quotes from professionals, papers, and numbers.

 

Nervous to start, but building up courage to speak to an elder, I responded.

“We are being treated as still sponges soaking up your information.

you want us to reach for the stars, but we only grow as fast as a star fish.

which is fine if you want to teach us how to survive,

but to thrive we need freedom.

 

I began my thesis:

The world changes too fast for generations to run schools, and write textbooks.

Faster research can be done on Google.

Students now, aren't any smarter then your teachers were at our age,

but we have more information and the world changes too fast for your current institution,

Yet your schools insist on not changing. And it causes damage to our generation.

 

You see our textbooks have copyright 2010,

but their information is built on fact proven and proven again.

I learn more about the structure and function of DNA on CNN,

when I read that scientists just made synthetic strands with completely different amino acids!

I see information exceeding or diminishing these textbooks value on Google.

 

So when your students can forge a paper for 9th grade biology in twenty minutes,

because the research, interpretations, and facts, are already presented,

with a simple key word typed into the worlds largest search engine,

that's not challenging, enriching, or interesting to our generation.

The reality is, what information 20 years ago was cutting edge,

doesn't offer much to children despite its brand new McGraw-hill copyright 2010.

further more, for most of them 1st edition has copyright 1987.

 

Switching gears to the children you call troubled students,

one of my friends bragged to me today he was on medication.

Apparently it was to help him focus on his education.

He has a sharp mind, wonderfully gifted. Very quick witted.

He could run quick, type 100 words a minute,

He bested me in video games and checkers, and feats of physics.

I didn't feel he needed them.

The truth is, principal, his IQ is 70 points higher then your generation.

And that's not an exception, its everyone in each progressive generation.

The numbers throughout recent history, show the opposite of human intelligence regressing.
 

Technology and innovation are the gifts you gave us today

and don't get me wrong I’m grateful. You changed the world,

but it seems you don't see how these changes have affected us.

Washington Post reports the Y's are the “laziest” generation.

Because we don't experience hard work and obedient study; We're too privileged.

 

But I would like to posit, Sir principle,

that we are doing more work then you could imagine.

Our creativity is solving problems of the future that your politicians, mister principle,

refuse to consider.

Corporations and government seem too limited in respect to the open-source district.

We have to tackle the problems previous generations didn't.

Climate change, new world morals, political change, and international business;

Software that changes the fabric of communities, true freedom, and rights for opressed individuals.

 

all these changes we are more concerned with,

every topic that distracts us from homework,

all the things that interest us outside of the textbook,

got my friend labeled with a mental condition.

 

ADHD is our generation's human nature. Autism although mysterious,

offers great gifts of vision that our generation will need to get through all of this.

The gifts of these mad minds –schizophrenic, bi-polar, depression-

in this generation, are more pervasive out here,

then in your mental institutions.

The youngest physicist is an autistic teen at the age of 15. His doctors said he wouldn't

ever learn how to read.

And the artist that paints pictures of the new york sky line,

just by flying above its city scape twice,

can't communicate by tongue, but does so in graphite.

 

So Mr. principle, the reason why I walked from that class today, 

the reason why I talk with fervent desire for change,

is because i'm generation 'Y' and in this circumstance, this moment, this chance,

I could convince one of standing, to adapt, to swim, to open my mind.”

 

Realizing the soapbox I stood on left me out of my chair, I turned red, sat down, tucked my head and said,

 

“Rather then a star fish, I would love to be a dolphin. That's a great education.

Swimming, being curious, enjoying life, and learning in an open sea.

Venturing to the sky where I will leap beautifully in the sunlight

and learn that the ocean has a limit, but I can go as deep or far as I wish.”

 

Changing the world, and seeking the best for our kids.

Just like you really, but always seeking better ways of doing this.

 

 

 

 

Comments

samanthavenialogan

When I wrote this I had just finished watching several videos found on TED.com regarding our IQs, mentally disabled geniuses,  the drop out rates of ivy league colleges in relation to the success rates at surrounding highschools, and how my very generation is not successful for really no reason.  

while I had been riled up with all of the injustices to children in the world of academia, I also ended up thinking about all of the things I wish i had gotten in my education as a poor, bottom milddle class student with little expectation for success and a firm frustration for all the things I was missing in the world.

 

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