Brightness

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Every year, our students grow dim

Their light of knowledge flickering 

As they attempt to jump into the darkness that is adulthood too quickly, without preparation

They talk and text and tweet, blocking out anything that attempts to teach them

Something that might make them seem like the children they are

They shorten and mutilate their language to save time

They skip the sciences to learn the anatomy of one another

They ignore history to look solely to the present and future

They scorn math to stay within their circle of friends

All of this is done to be cool

Forgetting about when "cool" was about who you were and what you stood for

So our lights go out even more each year

Until we are all alone in the darkness that has grown around us since we were born

The darkness that is adulthood and maturity

For as we grow up, we are slowly warned of how one day 

We shall be on our own, nearly blinded in the fact that we shall be alone

With no help from anyone

And that the only thing that will aid us during these troubling times,

Our only light, will be knowledge

But if we do not have knowledge, how shall we survive the darkness?

Will we all just stumble through the rest of our lives, disconnected from reality?

Who will help us regain that light?

The teachers don't care, looking merely at their salary and physical benefits

And not at the personal benefit of helping young minds grow ever brighter

The schools don't care, looking merely at their budget and their ranks 

Not caring if the children don't learn as long as they pass their tests

The tests that show their intelligence as judged by strangers

It does not matter if they can write a musical score or if they can code a program

As long as they know that A + B =Z and that the mitochondria is a powerhouse

And these tests that are supposed to show our supposed intelligence

Are continuously dumbed down to fit our even dumber students

They are fitting this world of academics to fit the student, so that

The schools might seem better for having the "brighter" students who are able to pass all tests

They pretend to stress the student's individuality when really, 

They're stressing our ability to conform to someone else's opinion of what is right

And what happens when the students reach the real world, the world beyond school?

What will they do when they find that the world no longer revolves around what they do or will do

When what matters is what you have done up until now

They cannot fathom the fact that they must change to fit this new world 

Or be forgotten and forsaken by society

This is why we must teach our children NOW what it takes to be an adult

To show them the importance of knowledge

lest we forget, as an entire generation, what "brightness" truly means.

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