Usually poets tend to lose the point and wander off into rants or get lost with their cool rhymes, but Samuel keeps his focus by listing three pillars of modern education that he finds most disturbing.
1. Education stifles creativity. As a teacher I have to agree. Poetry, art, and creation is valued less and less by our public schools who seem intent on only teaching the skills that will produce the best test results. My English department no longer even offers creative writing as an elective choice. Writing in our schools today is not about self exploration, it is about test score generation.
2. Schools exist to judge and condemn you. Unfortunately, he is right again. The current grading system seems to do a great job telling people they are less than perfect, less than smart. Even the new standards based grading system that we are developing now still boils down to one letter on your report card that tells the majority of people that someone else is smarter. Why can't your report card judge this year's performance against your performance last year? Why do we insist on creating competition between teenagers for a limited number of stamps of approval?
3. Segregation / Inequality. In Illinois especially, the rich are given extra facilities and services, while the poor do without textbooks, libraries and the like. Much of the entrenched beauracracy exists to preserve the wealth of the rich and give as little to the poor as possible. Need some evidence? Check out the Illinois state school report card: http://schools.chicagotribune.com/district/grant-chsd-124/#operating-expenditures
Clearly there are other problems in schools, but "Modern Education" hits the big three. Andrew Samuel shows us that schools are corporate entitities designed to crank out ACT takers, not develop individuals.
