04 January 2006

What They Learned in School

A "poem" by Jerome Stern. This monologue aired March 17, 1990, on "All Things Considered," National Public Radio's daily news broadcast. Stern was a professor of English at Florida State University in Tallahasee.


In the schools now, they want them to know
all about marijuana, crack, heroin, and
amphetamines,

Because then they won't be interested in mari-
juana, crack, heroin, and amphetamines,

But they don't want to to tell them anything about
sex because if the schools tell them about sex,
then they will be interested in sex,

But if the schools don't tell them anything
about sex,

Then they will have high morals, and no one
will get pregnant, and everything will be all
right,

And they do want them to know a lot about
computers so they will outcompete the
Japanese,

But they don't want them to know anything
about real science because then they will lose
their faith and become secular humanists,

And they do want them to know about this
great land of ours so they will be patriotic,

But they don't want them to learn about the
tragedy and pain in its real history because
then they will be critical about this great land
of ours and we will be passively taken over by
a foreign power,

And they want them to learn how to think for
themselves so they can get good jobs and be
successful,

But they don't want them to have books that
confront them with real ideas because that
will confuse their values,

And they'd like them to be good parents,

But they can't teach them about families be-
cause that takes them back to how you get to
be a family,

And they want to warn them about how not to get AIDS

But that would mean telling them how not to get AIDS,

And they'd like them to know the Con-
stitution,

But they don't like some of those amendments
except when they are invoked by the people
they agree with,

And they'd like them to vote,

But they don't want them to discuss current
events because it might be controversial and
upset them and make them want to take
drugs, which they already have told them all about,

And they want to teach them the importance of
morality,

But they also want them to learn that Winning
is not everything--it is the Only Thing,

And they want them to be well-read,

But they don't want them to read Chaucer or
Shakespeare or Aristophanes or Mark Twain
or Ernest Hemingway or John Steinbeck, be-
cause that will corrupt them,

And they don't want them to know anything
about art because that will make them weird,

But they do want them to know about music so
they can march in the band,

And they mainly want to teach them not to
question, not to challenge, not to imagine,
but to be obedient and behave well so that
they can hold them forever as children to
their bosom as the second millennium lurches
toward its panicky close.

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