By Noel Ihebuzor
A song on bad education
Anxious open minds, eyes ablaze and shining
all gaiety and laughter at entry
to an environment, structured, neat, calibrated and ordered
most exit, heads crammed with knowledge, morose, twinkle gone
minds closed, vision dimmed , imagination dulled and diluted
a perceived empty vessel, trapped
and held hostage in an unequal dialogue
with a pedagogue
who suffers no dialogue
outside the book log
austere professional who decants chunks of assured unquestionable knowledge
in unmeasured torrents to be imbibed and returned
the death of the imagination in minds once so active
learning to learning suspended, dangling knowledge
with no anchor nor roots
dampening spirits, sad, sore and dour
the emergence of one dimensional thinking
fostered by methods that shackle rather than free the mind
and a mind that was once so free to roam
and loved to run, roll and tumble
now stalls, staggers in tatters, strutless
and a flicker that was lit at birth,
slowly dims, dims and dies…..
Reflections 
Oh, my, this hits home. I firmly believe most schools here now simply educate to improve test scores–and indeed, rote information is spewed, ingested, and reflexively regurgitated. Is this an education, or simply mental programming? I remember when education represented less of a test score and more of doorway one could enter freely and when one left, it was with certain rote information, true–but also a retained ability to question and think.
Great poem, Noel, and really like how you ended it.
LikeLike
Thanks, Susan! Some of what is passed off as education actually amounts to homicide of the mind and the spirit!
LikeLike
It does–but whom to arrest?
LikeLike
Those who dull minds instead of developing them!
LikeLike