The Nightmare To End All Nightmares
Each of us has had nightmares in our lifetimes.
Here is my version of a reformer’s worst nightmare.
I am in a classroom. The doors are locked. The windows have wooden blinds and they are pulled shut. There are close to 50 adults sitting in bolted-down desks arranged in nine rows facing a teacher’s desk and whiteboard. I am sitting at a graffiti-ridden desk at the end of the third row. The teacher looks like Ms Bowler my eighth grade English teacher who had required each of us to recite “Abou Ben Adhem” publicly; she is berating us now for not listening to the report that each adult is giving. She wants us to fold our hands on our scarred desks and give each “student” our fullest attention or, she says, we will not be able to leave the room….ever.
She begins by calling upon the first adult sitting in the first row next to the door who had reported yesterday–yes,