Learned

As I wrote this originally, I was listening to National Public Radio interviewing a senior from Virginia Tech, the scene of the worst massacre so far in American school history. Asked what made her happy about returning to class, without hesitation she announced that it was being able, finally, to take her year-end exams. The interviewer was puzzled, and asked"why that?" She needed no time to reply. "Why, to see if I learned anything, of course:' Here was the perfect product of the school factory - a young woman who would never be a problem for any important special interest. Or of any use to the rest of us when trouble comes

--John Taylor Gatto, "Weapons Of Mass Instruction", p. 58