Last Friday morning, I had History class. Tiredly I walked into the classroom — it had been a somewhat sleep-deprived week — and seated myself at a table in the front row, as is compulsory for History classes. My History teacher greeted me with the sentence, “Congratulations, Jess! You will have the opportunity to exercise your limited democratic rights today!”
He referred to the elections for next year’s school captains, which were held after recess that day. We had talked before about how the elections were being run, and had (as usual…) been unable to agree. My History teacher thought they were being marvellously. Pseudo-democratic, just as it should be. No rights to privacy or secret ballots, as it should be. No possibility of electing an “inappropriate” candidate to represent the people, as it should be. Read on…
There is no year 12 history next year. We have failed, comrades.
I am becoming increasingly sure that my History teacher’s goal in life is to establish his own Democratic People’s Republic. How do I come to a crazy conclusion like this, you ask? One thing: “re-education classes”. After school, every afternoon, for those year 11 History students who aren’t “good citizens”.
It all began on Tuesday, when we were given a wonderful assignment. In pairs (”like on Sesame Street”), we were to research and formulate a ten-minute presentation on a topic which would be assigned to us. It could take any form so long as we got the information across “in a coherent format understandable to the populace at large”, was “pretty”, and used primary sources and more than one viewpoint. It was then that one of my classmates, Terence, noticed the unusual heading at the bottom of the page — “Why are we doing this?” Read on…
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