the institution

What happened to the desire to learn? We had that once. Look at a little kid, and listen to him. A conversation with him will be filled with his questions. "Why is the sky blue? Where do babies come from? What is a rainbow?" Now look at a high school kid, and listen to him. A conversation will be filled with his apathy and the occasional question. "When is class over? Will I have to write this on my crib sheet for the final?" What happened to the desire to learn?

I like the idea of school. A place where you can learn from people who are the authority on their subjects. But it seems like it has turned into a place where you are forced to memorize things that are not always true. We empty students of all individuality and strip them of their inquisitive nature. We load them down with heavy burdens to further beat them into that submissive worker that the corporations seek. I am reminded of Paulo Friere's work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and will quote Rich Gibson in his work Paulo Friere and Revolutionary Pedagogy For Social Justice:

Freire criticized "banking" educational methods, seeing students as empty accounts to be filled with deposits of knowledge.

Friere spoke of how learning has become a passive activity by which we simply receive knowledge and have knowledge "withdrawn" during tests. Learning must be active, as we continuously test what is true as Gibson continues to explain:

He practiced a transformational style, the student becoming a subject in gaining and experimenting with knowledge. Truth became an examination of social understandings, not a doctrine determined by testing services.

What is truth? Can the institution decide what is truth? Must we believe whatever falls from the mouth of our teachers? Certainly not. Especially when the institution decides what they are allowed to teach! Why would the institution want you to learn the history of the Ludlow Massacre where, on April 20th 1914, two National Guard companies, who were stationed on hills overlooking the largest tent colony of strikers in Ludlow, Colorado, open fired with machine guns upon the tent colony. And then they proceeded to set fire to the tents and the pits, which were dug by women and children attempting to find refuge from the gunfire. If we taught this in history classes would it really benefit the institution? No, it would stir a curiosity in students, and a passion. A passion that would most likely turn against the institution.

My belief is that the institution has intentionally killed our desire to learn. The institution needs to kill our desire to learn. It knows that if our desire to learn is allowed to survive we would one day come across the truth of our countries history. The Ludlow Massacre, the Genocide in the Philipines, the war crimes committed in the Vietnam war, the genocide of the Native Americans in our country I could go on endlessly listing atrocities committed by our government. If we learned the truth about these things we would come to understand the intentions of the founding fathers when they wrote the declarations of independence:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Call me crazy but after reading about the Ludlow massacre I would have to say that our Government has become destructive of our rights to Life, Liberty and our pursuit of happiness. By this Declaration of Independence we are charged with the right to alter or abolish it and institute a new Government that will effect our Safety and Happiness. But, of course, if we were to create a new government that would not definitely not help the institution. Because then we would have people in government who weren't in the pocket of the institution. We would have politicians that weren't corrupt (at least for a week). And our new government would care more about the people than the coffers of the Morgan family. But of course we could never speak ill of our government thanks to the patriot act, so lets give a hurah to giving up all our freedom for a sense of false security, Hail to our dictator!