What a beautiful line to start a song. Robin Pecknold’s lyrics (Fleet Foxes) from Helplessness Blues have been ringing in my ears during most of my recent car journeys. When I wrote about the purpose of education, the ongoing discussion made me recall them once again.
The opening two verses/stanzas seem to sum up what can happen in education in the course of about 10 years.
I was raised up believing
I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes
Unique in each way you can seeAnd now after some thinking
I’d say I’d rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me
The question I suppose is: do our education systems make children believe they are snowflakes or cogs?
Love this song too!
If there is a ‘Master’, then S/He cannot be excused for the bullying and holocausts that we must never forget are part of our picture.
An ‘author’, ‘leader’ or ‘oz’ believed to be in charge of all the other ‘cogs’ is malign. That would be forcing people to labour like blind machine parts. However, should the snowflakes themsleves decide to work together as a harmonious community, then they will freely articulate themselves as cogs towards a perpetually self-directed work of art.
Snowmachines are brilliant. Cogs falling from the sky, not so much.
Another way to say it “We are a work of art by the Master Designer and Creator Himself”. Same idea. Yes, very nice!