Cathedral of Learning

My brother-in-law gets to go to school here:

I get to "go to school" in the typical bricks and mortar construction from the seventies that one sees scattered all over the state, if not the entire country.

It just doesn't seem fair somehow. I put in my dues in high school. I dealt with the drama and the stress. And now I'm back. You'd think that being on the other side of the desk would change things.

It doesn't. It's still stress and drama. Still in a institutional environment.

I wonder if things would be different if, instead of going to school, we all went to the "Cathedral of Learning" or to some other interestingly named building. I wonder if it would be different if our school looked like this rather than...well...rather than what it looks like.

Would it be a happier place? Or would it all still be about standardized test scores, about students becoming nothing more than a number charted and graphed by faceless droids? Would it still be about jockeying for position at the right hand of an administrator, even if it means alienating your colleagues and stepping on them if it means little more than a lateral move?

I think I'll go back to college...