“We are told in primary school that wiilowfield is a caring school that provides help in learning, in a happy environment. But as soon as we start on the first day: the smiles fade; the help isn’t there anymore; the homework increases tenfold; the heaters are switched off in the winter and on in the summers. We live in boiling misery. Is this what we want, my fellow students? The teachers have total control over us. We have to wear stupid uniforms, uncomfortable, hard shoes. We can’t protest or speak our opinions, we can’t play football, and we’re never taken on any trips. Is this what you want my fellow students?
None of us knows the meaning of happy learning and socialisation within this school. If we object to any commands we’re are physically hurt, and when we report it , it is simply passed off as a joke. Is this what we want my fellow students? Our life can only be classified as misearable, and over worked; that is the plain and simple truth, my fellow pupils.
“But is this how it should be in school? Is this how we are supposed to be treated as pupils of this school? As second class humans? No! Billions upon a millions times, NO! This is just the result of bullying and abuse of power and authority. This is the result of people being cruel and hateful for no good reason. Don’t you see, these teachers steal all of our happiness. Removing them is the one and only answer to our problems. They are the root of our suffering, our stress, our emotional breakdowns, and our mental breakdowns. In short, this torture and pain inflicted upon us destroys us. It is time to be strong.
“Just the other day a good friend of mine was taken to hospital because he suddenly collapsed in the classroom. The amount of work he still had to do and the question of whether or not he’d finish it or not, got to him. Unfortunately he is still in hospital trying to recover from a serious mental disorder. I can also remember another incident where a year eight boy went down the wrong way because he had a diarrhoea attack. He passed a frustrated and upset teacher who took out his anger by shoving the young boy over the railings fifteen feet to the ground. He is also in hospital with much more than just diarrhoea to worry about.
Every day a teacher roughly shoves at least one of you, a fellow pupil of mine and ours, off their chair in class. Everyday these teachers tell us to line up in an orderly fashion at the dinner queues while they barge in to the very front without any thought about the safety of the young people in their way. We, on the other hand, have to wait for ages on end. Every day these teachers give us tons of homework, which isn’t even relevant to the syllabus. You see it is just done to see us suffer in silence. And, these syllabus guides who are given to the teachers are probably stashed in some bottom draw of a filing cabinet. When it comes to the exams we fail miserably because we haven’t studied the relevant topics. It, of course is blamed on us not working hard enough, while we have probably worked ten times as hard as we actually should have
This is where my dream comes in .Let me tell it to you. After I fell asleep, I dreamed that suddenly I was caught in a void of some sort. I could hear inhumane screeching and howls of pain coming from all around me. I was floating in nothingness. Pain racked my entire body inside out Ugly colours blurred my vision. I could smell a wretched substance. The odour filled my nostrils and I wanted to throw up. But I had no control of my body. I felt unclean and my soul felt shrivelled and wasted. I wondered whether I was in hell. Then suddenly I was walking in a sunny field of tall well-nourished beautiful plants. I felt happy and cleansed. A man appeared from nowhere, sitting on a rock. He was old and wise.
“You are the chosen”, one he said. I asked, who are you and what do you mean.
He replied, “It doesn’t matter who I am”. Then, suddenly I had a vision that we together had overthrown the teachers’ unreasonable rule over us. That we had more control over our lives at school. I had a vision that we could play football. I had a vision the teachers treated us like real people and didn’t give us extended irrelevant homework’s. I had a vision that we were equal with the teachers. I had a vision that by protesting and assuming power, we came to a mutual agreement. And if this is not possible we will settle this simply by number. There six hundred of us. There are only forty of them. If we all protest at once what will they do? My final vision was of us, all proud and happy. This is not only for our sakes it is for generations to come. It is time to put an end to this abuse of power. If we do not, future generations will be treated much worse as these teachers’ lust for authority and sadistic power increases. We are all individuals. No one is above anyone. Everyone is equal.
My fellow pupils, after my vision the mans head had the words ‘Father Justice’ written on it. He smiled and started to sing, beckoning me to join in after a while.
The words ran:
No longer can they beat us up
No longer can they work us up
It doesn’t matter what the teachers say
Doesn’t matter what the teachers think
We wont have to wear these rags
No extra work, or eye bags
Happiness more than the mind can picture
And stress free lives that were out of the picture
Now us kids will take control
For freedom sake, their rules we’ll break
This is what we’ve been waiting for
So come on you fools.
As he sang, the whole crowd joined in and they sang and sang. They burst into the corridors like a swarm of bees protecting their hives. Their hearts were thumping mad, they leapt into excitement and joy. A new undiscovered feeling rose from deep inside every single last one of them. But most importantly the boy’s speech had brought them into a new understanding of equality and how it should have been all along.
