Oh how the rain falls o’er the fields as I peer out upon another dreary Irish evening. By my side this cup of tea befriends the laptop on my knee. Surely it must be the most dismal hour of the year, this January lull. The Christmas decorations have now lost their light and warmth. Disinterested, they have become clutter perched in corners awaiting their annual undoing, if only I could locate the impulse. A crow screeches above me heralding oncoming gloom. It is enough to give a man writer’s block.
A breaking rainbow catches the attention of my daughter who marvels and celebrates. A passing flock of sparrows alight momentarily upon our leafless tree, as if to say, “it’s all okay, we’ll return to see you another day.” So it is, the end of another advent season and emotional emigration once again from the peace and glow of the family hearth. Did it go faster this year?
I remember when I was a boy I would kick and scream at the prospect of going back to school after Christmas. We had this ‘genius’ headmaster who in his ‘preeminent’ wisdom required our school to return two days earlier than all other schools in the area. I yelled until two o’clock in the morning when my poor mother eventually relented and allowed me to remain homebound for just one more day. Now, I was not particularly spoiled. It was just that I could not abide people in positions of authority making stupid decisions that affected hundreds of people. I had no other way to protest and express my displeasure. In a sense this was my victory over the fella, my way of showing I would not accept his unwillingness to account for the situation of others. Of course today I firmly insist that my mother should have allied with me. She should have even encouraged my dissent, for anything short of boycott was only rewarding a tyrant and emboldening him to continue in his imbecility.
Indeed, I did not want to go back to school. It seemed so mechanical and dull. Children were lined up like cattle at a market and compelled to place their fingers of their lips, as though the sound of children laughing and having fun was some horrible occurrence to be deconditioned with every vocal effort. Herded around hallways, we were directed into boxes and forced to behave in a manner befitting adulthood. The farmers, trained in the distribution of information, then compelled us to accept their words and explanations without question. No protest was permitted; no alternative viewpoint tolerated for wrath was incurred, taking the form of silence, angry grimacing or ostracization.
My young inquisitive mind loved to learn, wanted to integrate ideas and understand the intricacies of life and the world we live in. I had many questions that were bursting to be acknowledged, to grow and blossom into thought. Yet, for decades my yearning to direct my energy toward the independent pursuit of wisdom would have to remain dormant as I followed the rote regulations of a system designed to create followers who obey authority, rather than leaders who could change the world.
Here is the definition of education provided by the Encyclopedia Britannica:
“Many definitions have been given of the word education, but underlying them all is the conception that it denotes an attempt on the part of the adult members of a human society to shape the development of the coming generation in accordance with its own ideals of life”
When Plato first conceived classrooms, the student was an individual. He was seen as a human being with personal gifts and talents to be cultivated and mastered for the good of society. In time however, self-appointed wise men transformed education into a method of spoon-feeding ideas and agendas into impressionable young minds. Children were expected to accept and assume without questioning or seeking proof. Even nowadays in our Irish schools, and further afield, young people are taught to take orders rather than to decide independently through logical, reasoned enquiry. Our children have lost their identities. They blend into a cultural collective thought.
Today, the evidence suggests that few people know why they believe the things they do. Taking cue from the schools they knew, our children grew to become a nation of information farmers like their teachers before, expecting everyone else to accept the ideals they dispense without question. Any disobedience or protest is promptly extinguished.
This system plays neatly into the hands of those who wish to dictate or manipulate what we believe. Truly, parents who now seek a true education for their children in Ireland are met with the greatest impediments. Recently, an Irish mother of six children was jailed for daring to home school her children (Irish Mother of Six Jailed for Home Schooling). Governmental authorities shut down her parental right to decide what is best for her own children. Why do we stand for this? Why do we tolerate giving other people control over every aspect of our lives? It seems like these tyrants demand our children become educated according to their standards, so society is remade in their image and not for the good of our young. Ireland was once the land of saints and scholars, it has become a land of easily lead followers, perfectly contained so lesser control minded men can have their way unchallenged.
Are we going to allow it to continue? Are there people out there who can organize efforts to fight this madness? Are there groups in communities who can come together and plan methods of combating these autocratic laws designed to contain us like cattle? Our country has become an oligarchy. We no longer have true electoral choice. No matter who is in power, north or south, the situation never substantially improves. If we do not acquire the ability to educate our children as independent thinkers we will never raise up the great minds capable of dismantling the fabricated lies of a state repressing us. We should all be yelling and screaming to two o’clock in the morning that “No, we will not accept it, we will settle for nothing but liberty.”
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