Square Inside Sunday, November 25, 2007

A high school senior in Alton, Illinois wrote this two weeks before he committed suicide:

He drew... the things inside that needed saying. Beautiful pictures he kept under his pillow.
When he started school he brought them...
To have along like a friend.
It was funny about school, he sat at a square brown desk Like all the other square brown desks... and his room Was a square brown room like all the other rooms, tight And close and stiff.

He hated to hold the pencil and chalk, his arms stiff
His feet flat on the floor, stiff, the teacher watching
And watching. She told him to wear a tie like
All the other boys, he said he didn't like them.
She said it didn't matter what he liked. After that the class drew.
He drew all yellow. It was the way he felt about Morning. The Teacher came and smiled, "What's this?
Why don't you draw something like Ken's drawing?"
After that his mother bought him a tie, and he always Drew airplanes and rocketships like everyone else.
He was square inside and brown and his hands were stiff. The things inside that needed saying didn't need it
Anymore, they had stopped pushing... crushed, stiff
Like everything else.

Everyone should go and read this article because this man is speaking the truth. It's a powerful and fascinating look at school as a tool of social indoctrination He's brilliant. Please, Miz Salem-Shadow and everybody read and comment.