rev. terry writes
THE YOUTH NEED A LIBERATION FRONT
Rev. Terry and Crudocrust of the DAAA Collective Modesto CA, Central Valley
From forthcoming and final DAAA Collective zine, NCAA (Northern Californian Anti-Authoritarian) #5.
Every business day a living creature is violated, condemned, coerced, biologically molested, and standardized to the point of misery between the hours 8:00am-3:00pm, preparing for a life full of preparing for life, or what they would tell us will be “our lives”. These creatures are made to feel inferior, and are forced through state sanctioned means of coercion and degradation, to compete and test against each other, creating newly formed class systems that in their earlier years never existed. Like a hunter gather thrust into a world of divide labor and complicated technology, we have be thrust from our world of play and fun into a world where suddenly things were serious. These creatures are children, around the ages 4-18. Chances are a child today has already witness a divorce, addiction, violence, and witnessed some one they love crushed by debt or job loss. Now they will have the experience of hearing that he/she is “not as advanced” or “ hyper active” because they cant sit throe 8+ hours of bland restricted teaching? As the problems increase, so do the pills. Where once a happy child bounced with the joys of young life, now a lifeshell now sits, digesting their drug intake. Some of our eyes are opening, and some of us our seeing that we are not supposed to fit into the mold that they are forcing us into. Schools have us training to be math wizes and track stars, but most of aren’t or don’t want the position if left to our own devices, and we are very, pissed off about it.
As a child of 16, (before being kicked out of Riverbank High and into a continuation school), I was woken up at 6:30, which my body could tell me was to early for my growing young adult frame. Teens brains don’t even become awake until about 10am, and thus the first half of the day is wasted as I doze in and out of class. Across the nation however, children are herded into school not later, but earlier, as schools are starting classes at new times. This loss of sleep I will never gain back, and will just add to the plenty of sleep I will soon lose in the work place. Parents and teachers will justify this by saying “go to sleep earlier”, which if I did would never have time to spend time with my friends or actually learn. At 6:50A.M. I’m not hungry (which I took as another signal from my body that I wasn’t supposed to be awake at this time), this of course, as one would probably guess, effected my whole day. The food that the state offers me isn’t that good either. From milk filled with hormones, to soda filled with stimulants and calories no young person should be exposed to, I’ve a walking target for a youth market that is totally captured in one space. As the "Terminator" terminates more and more state money for the school, suddenly Mountian Dew bought text books don't look that bad. I now can learn about health from my good friends at Frito Lay, and are provided with cool book binders by the Navy. The lack of sleep and lack of food combine to create not a winning performance, but one of malnutrition, insomnia, and lack of any real learning. I’m not learning about the world, I’m learning about how to survive in the work world. In short, I'm learning to take my place in the capitalist landscape. One of the posters of my teachers reads, "Like School? You'll love Work!"
At 8:12am I was already late for “youth concentration camp…” as anarchist writer Bob Black would called it. I would arrive on time but would leave the campus to feed one of my many addictions with many other students who “vent” in this way. By this time in my life I had got over the fear of being in trouble. And when called to the office because of my recurring tardiness and absences, I would confidently state my beliefs to the vice principal out of spite and disgust for my imposed situation.
Every day millions of kids have their natural search of knowledge crushed by the schools associating learning with pain and force. Reading is hated because of years of useless short stories and imposed novels, history feared because of one-sided textbooks that shorten years into paragraphs and repeated math that may or may-not be used in the future are shoved down throats. The struggles and achievements of people of color, women, and radicals appear as footnotes, and we struggle to copy down the accomplishments of a few rich white men. A child can pass every test, but still be called a failure because he/she did not spend the little time they have off doing homework. A child can also spend all their time doing homework, and fail because they can't take standarized tests. What is learned here is not about if we actually learn or not, but if we are able to produce something that meets requirements. Not every child is going to learn the same way. Some may learn from notes, reading, audio/visual, or experience.
School tries one way, and if that doesn’t work, then that student is a failure. If I had a book I wanted to read or just needed some time off, who are you to tell me that is not acceptable. Is this to prepare me for the factory, where new ideas are scorned, and obedience and output is excepted? You are human just like me, and the only thing that separates me from adults of authority is a piece of paper that some other human gave you.
I learned more “slacking around” and making forts from sticks down by the river, than I learned a week in physical science. Just as any difference in students is stopped (hair, clothes, thought, etc..), standards restrict what a teacher may teach, destroying the differences in opinion. Where once a flowing tapestry of knowledge existed, now only a dry book of state sanctioned facts remain. Thus children only know that what is on the “big” test in the end, and high test scores mean that the school get there funding, and that children are “educated” and ready to work. This is what you call learning, because it looks like standarization to me.
Then I go home to my parents already pissed of from their crappy days at work, who soon learn, from the robotic voice on the phone, my day’s ordeals. I’m not against learning, quite the opposite, its just not happening. We can’t just spend our lives preparing for life. You will go to school instead of living and then to work instead of having fun, hoping some day you will get to live the life you once had.
If school is the beginning, then we will unmake school, better yet - we will declare war. An endless war for the endless attack that the system of markets, commerce, and work has created all around us. They would give us biological molestation, we will allow ourselves the sleep that our bodies need. They would give us genetically modified foods and meats, carbonated sugar waters and disgusting corporate tripe, and we will give them broken vending machines and green houses that produce fruits and vegetables that we will grow, cook, and eat. In place of standardization, we will have free association. The puppet student governments will be meaningless in the face of organized student assemblies and councils. As the flags by the office are burned, the principles office will make a perfect home for the creation of an Indy media center, as propaganda teams occupy the copier to make news of the insurrection. Unlimited knowledge, unlimited access, unlimited freedom to explore, create, and become the kinds of people that we want to be. Perhaps we will find our true selves not in the mold that capitalism would have us in, but at war with the mold that they have created for us.
Student Government Never, Student Self-Managment Now!
Link: http://www.modanarcho.tk
