Imagine a world where learning's encouraged

 

Imagine a system out of control

One within which your original goal

Is stymied and jostled, you’re pushed off your mission

You lack motivation and predisposition.

Where original aims and plans for the future

Like prone on the floor like a disposable suture

Ripped from the patient, before he had healed,

Leaving deep scars and terrible wheals.

 

Imagine a process in which you had hope

One within which you felt you could cope

Until realisation, it came unto you

That what you are doing is Catch 22.

Your job’s unrewarding, stressful and sad

You’re constantly wondering why it’s so bad.

Is this a profession, or is it a joke

To make the lot work would give you a stroke.

 

Imagine a job that’s more like production

One within which you're on auto-destruction

Producing consumers who one and all

Repeat what they learned; if they can recall.

How could it be? With almost no stopping

That learning got hijacked and became more like shopping?

Browsing for this and searching for that;

Like copies of copies of old photostat.

 

Imagine a world where learning’s encouraged,

Where teaching means something; not constantly rubbished

Imagine a world where learning is treasured

Not just certificated or similarly measured.

How would it be if we de-schooled society

Focused on learning and made it all free?

So learning became our most precious possession

We all became part of the teaching profession.

 

Imagine some learners wanting to learn

New things and old stuff; each in their turn

Wanting to read, wanting to listen

Keen to find out; their minds to position.

How would it be if for learning to distil

We plugged into a network of specialised skills

Learned what we wanted, learned what we sought,

The world might improve, if only self-taught.