What did you learn in school today?

Yesterday while reading Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of The Oppressed (1993) (some light reading I know) I came across what at first I thought was a poem but later realized was a song by Tom Paxton. I really like it because it speaks exactly to what I am writing my current paper about introducing critical and feminist pedagogy into the preschool classroom. So while the concept of the song may be a bit above the heads of two year olds it does display what we usually think of as the "banking system" of education as described by Freire. In this system teachers are revered as the all knowing beings while students are empty vessels for knowledge to be deposited. While this relationship is reciprocal students give teachers this power by not questioning and engaging in their learning. This says that teaching is one of the ultimate modes of power since teachers have the ability to construct reality for students which often masks oppression and social injustices committed to the oppressed and marginalized students. I think this relates very specifically to performance in that one of the ultimate goals is to reconstruct epistemologies and subjugated knowledges to in order to empower those marginalized peoples who rely on this knowledge. This means that we must learn and understand that bodily knowledges are often undervalued and disregarded in terms of their ability to construct reality and valuable knowledge. I think if Freire would talk about reality as a bodily knowledge we would really be in business connecting performance and pedagogy together. i think other people do this, bell hooks in teaching to transgress, as black women's/women of color's scholarship tends to be tied to knowledge of the body and theories of the flesh, and Denzin in Performance Ethnography: Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Knowledge, but I don't recall this connection being made explicitly. Anyway, here is the song...I love it!

What Did You Learn in School Today?

Words and Music by Tom Paxton

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned that Washington never told a lie.
I learned that soldiers seldom die.
I learned that everybody's free.
And that's what the teacher said to me.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned that policemen are my friends.
I learned that justice never ends.
I learned that murderers die for their crimes.
Even if we make a mistake sometimes.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned our government must be strong.
It's always right and never wrong.
Our leaders are the finest men.
And we elect them again and again.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned that war is not so bad.
I learned of the great ones we have had.
We fought in Germany and in France.
And some day I might get my chance.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.

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there is also a really good vid on utube linking the Iraq war to this song but it is unable to be embedded. I suggest checking it out!

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here's one version done by Pete Seeger I think he and Tom are BFF