Cult Fiction: Detox the Paradox

It was as if i had had a eureka! moment, but then realised my arms, legs and head had fallen off. There was illumination, but no celebration, instead it was a rather more solemn train of thought, a feeling of intellectual injustice was left festering inside of me. I studied at a school that is well regarded academically, and that will destroy anything that threatens the attainment of high grades from its disciples. It is an educational machine. People go in, they're formed into high achieving, well balanced people or they and their renegade nature are bundled out of the fast moving van and left to decay in the gutter, hog tied and beaten black. As such, it's most valued subjects are the sciences and mathematics. The curriculum reflects the age of reason, where science is the discipline that, broadly speaking, can identify what is true and false, with the use of evidence. The scientific method, whereby claims are made, researched, tested and then either accepted or rejected, is the modern way to think, the educated way to think, the only way to think if one seeks proofs, and of course, mathematics serves to bind all of this. To me then, the school is clearly stressing the importance of science, the aim being to keep up with the only real way in which we speak and know more about reality.

Running parallel with this programme of science, however, is the traditionalist side of things. The school was founded as a christian school, and it still tries to maintain this title. It persists to hold services in the cathedral where hymns are sung about Gods grace and prayers are read about giving thanks to God for all that he has provided, everything is bound by religious belief. At the recent Harvest festival celebration we were not taught to thank the farmers, to thank our agricultural scientists for advancing technology, but to thank God for providing crops and our intelligence.

For a school that encourages inquisition, not enough of its students are asking questions about this absurd paradox. On the one hand; science, reason, logic and truth. On the other, ancient, un-supported, wild and false claims. For me, there seems to be an overt intellectual conflict, for you cannot accept one side and also accept the other. It really is remarkable. I have never seen such reckless disregard for truths well-being. Suppose you learn about how evolution has occurred, how it has evidence chambers over-flowing with support, and how it has shaped nature and biodiversity. After this lesson, you have to attend the cathedral service that is full to the brim of stories of how God has given us life on this earth, and at the time he did, it was as it is now, and this was perfect. Though clearly inferior to Darwin's life works, it should not even be humoured anymore, no longer should we have to listen to such erroneous notions, for they embarrass my intellect.

What's really disgusting, is that children are subjected to this. They believe what they are told, because they're taught to learn from authority. To make these children decide who to believe, the teacher or the man in the cathedral, and to present it to them as if it is a choice between two credible paths of perceiving reality is professionally derelict of all teaching staff.

I don't know how the teachers and older, more thoroughly educated pupils accept such a contradiction, i suppose they just ignore it, think it's just tradition. But the true problem is the planting of out-dated, inaccurate claims in children's minds. It is simply not efficient and is entirely counter productive. It is exactly similar to teaching a child that 8 divided by 2 equals 4 but at the same time 8 divided by 2 equals 3.

Mainstream education should be kept completely separate from religious teaching, since their messages can not co-exist peacefully. Understanding religious belief, from a historical, demographic point of view, should be considered helpful, but grasping this, and managing to isolate its teachings from reality, along with grasping science is a process that only a fully matured brain can cope with.

It is time to plunge the sword deep into this paradox, it is time to make the inevitable and unavoidable move forward and to stop clinging desperately to tradition, tradition that actually adds nothing to furthering children's education. It is time to allow schools to fulfill their purpose.

Fubar Lunch

I now work, as part of a gap year, at the school that i have attended for around a decade of my life. Along this conduit of education, laden with hard work and out-dated traditions, there has been some decisions made by the governing body of the school that have created a confection of well spoken unrest. At GCSE, they introduced an ISA, a practical element to the sciences exams. At A-level, they made it the rule of thumb to do 4 A-levels and to move back the date of AS examinations to January of the second year of sixth form. Perhaps unsurprisingly, both these changes happened to our year as the experiment; we were the Guinea pig year. None of these announcements, however, conjured as much bemusement and misfiring of my senses as the latest debacle.

The school announced that for one day both staff and pupils alike, will have a limited lunch, a rationed meal, a bread roll and a cup of soup. For this, we are expected to crumble to our knees and not protest when we are stung to the tune of £3 for the remarkably underwhelming experience. Behind the lunacy, there is a cause, it is essentially a fund raiser for Pakistan. This is not the problem; i am not a miserly misogynist. The problem is that we can raise the same amount of money in a fashion that is not going to cause suffering, be it minor. Mufti days, wear a hat days, eat a normal lunch but just wear something slightly different days..

The reasoning behind it is that this 'frugal lunch' day, will allow us blessed, fortunate and privileged, to partially experience one of the major problems in Pakistan in order to gain greater insight into what they are going through and provoke enhanced empathy towards them. Perhaps if this scheme was adopted for a week, this might work. A day, however, will simply create protests, unrest, complaints and under-nourishment. When people are safe in the knowledge that the norm is being reinstated the next day, it is an excuse for a pessimistic outlook, unity in misery. The reason the week long rationing wouldn't ever be considered, is that the governing body realise what a truly ridiculous notion this is.

From a utilitarian perspective, the population of Pakistan is suffering already, let's not make more people suffer, even for a day. One might suggest that it could create more empathy and in turn result in higher levels of 'good'. It will not, for in 24 hours after the meagre offerings, the children will once more play with their frubes, dance amongst their crisps and skip fancifully amidst their confectionery of varying assortment.

If i were to raise money for Help the Heros, for the brave men who fought for their country and have been maimed in return, i would run a race, climb a mast, wear home clothes. What i wouldn't do, is blow my legs off so as to place my self in their position. If i were raising money for the poor individuals that live amongst an African shanty town, in squalor and poverty, i would host a sponsored rugby match, i would do a sponsored silence, i would provide a cake sale service. What i wouldn't do, is shit in my drinking water and inject cholera directly into my bowels. This idea of putting yourself in their boots doesn't work, it is just an excuse for not just failing to avoid wholly avoidable plight, but manifesting it in the first place.

The idea will prove itself to be a massively unsuccessful campaign and if the school has any sense left unabandoned, future charity ideas at the school will come under KGB-esque scrutiny, so as to not entertain a repeat of this mammoth disaster.