Another minute ticked by.  Some took the extra time to catch up on each others’ weekends.  Others took the extra time to catch up on their sleep.  We had the priviledge of being in Mr. K’s morning class.  Seeing as he was never one to wake up all too early, we had gotten used to the extra free time we had before class every day.

Mr. K was a fickle man.  Some days he’d come in particularly angry, others, too sleepy to care, and, whenever he was really late, very, very happy.  Another minute gone.  Class started twenty minutes ago.  He’d be in a good mood today.

The door slammed open as he walked in.  Deliberately and without emotion.  His gaze was fixed on something outside the window as he walked to his desk, pulled out a piece of chalk and proceeded to write something on the board.  The chalk clacked with each strike, the words, “EDUCATION SYSTEM” written surprisingly clearly seeing as fast as he wrote.  Looks like I’m not so good at reading his moods afterall.  I’ll have to redraft that chart tonight.

“Today,” he said, turning around.  “We will be talking about the education system.”

For a literature class, we studied surprisingly little literature.

“Any questions?”

We had learned by this point the only proper response to that was, “No.”

“Alright,” he pointed into the class.  “Seat 12!  What are your thoughts on this nation’s education system?”

He never called us by name either.  It was too much effort to learn them.

“Uh,” Seat 12 hesistated, trying to figure out the best way to answer.  “It’s…a good thing?”

“Seat 17?”

“Yeah,” 17 answered.  “Definitely a good thing.”

“Wrong!”  He turned back to the board, waving the chalk around.  “The education system forces.  Students.  Into.  A.  Mold.” He was scribbling out each word as he said it.  Only this time, it was illegable.  He had given up halfway through, tracing a vague outline of each character instead of actually writing it.  “Instead.  Of.  Allowing.  Free.  Will.  And.  Growth.  Why is this?”

We had learned that it’d be best to let him answer himself in these situations.  “Because you aren’t people,” he threw the broken stick of chalk in the trash.  “You’re numbers.”

He wrote something on the board I couldn’t make out.  I doubt he knew what it was either.

“You are your test scores, and nothing else.”  He walked towards the still open door.  “You are your test scores now, and when you graduate,” he turned back and head to the window.  “You will become your income.”  He made his way back to the center of the podium just in time to slam both hands on it as he finished.  “You were born a number and you will die a number.”

“These are not ‘schools,’” he turned around, addressing the board, now covered in white lines, none of which were intelligeble.  “These are factories.  These ‘books’ and ‘classes’ and ‘grades’ are nothing more than molds built to turn you into a number.”

Nobody pointed out that he contradicted himself.

“What happens if you refuse to be shaped?” He looked over his shoulder at us.  “What happens if you want to stay a word, instead?”  The rest of his body followed.  “What happens then?”

We stared at each other for a while.  Another minute ticked by.  Nobody had an answer.  Mr. K included.  Shuffling over to his desk, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

“You end up like me,” he muttered, lighting one.  “End up running you kids through the conveyor belt instead of doing anything productive.”  He threw his feet on the desk and pulled out a newspaper.  “I forgot to make a lesson plan today.  Go home or something.”

“Sir,” somebody spoke up.  Seat 34.  She just transferred in.  “Why are you smoking in class?”

“Because it’s too early to drink.”