Can a song make you realize the messed up educational system?
The song Working Class Hero is a work of art by John Lennon, in which he talks about the mistreatment that people have to suffer and endure for fear of losing their jobs. Also, the way they teach in school and how they force children to study without encouraging critical thinking. We can relate this song to very similar situations that we live day by day in Colombia, for example, with gender injustice, poorly paid hard work, and education. Something that also influences is that more than half of Colombians are poor and do not have the basic right to food even if they work all day.
Education in Colombia is very complex because less than half of the population has a quality education while the other half studies in poor-quality public schools. This means that only privileged children in Colombia have the opportunity to graduate and enter a good university. The rest must work from a very young age to get the basics to live. What does this mean? We can see how the vast majority of Colombians have a job, but half of them live in poverty. This is thanks to the low-paid jobs that are usually the heaviest and those that don't need a career or good education, while the best-paid and most straightforward jobs are the ones that people with university and school degrees can apply for.
I want to highlight some lines of the song - Working Class Hero. "When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years. Then they expect you to pick a career. When you can't really function, you're so full of fear." This is a perfect example of situations that many Colombians live in, how so many children are scared for their future and the stress they feel to get into a good university, the pressure to choose a good career that can lead them to a better life and avoid being poor like most of the population.
Seeing how these situations happen to so many people in my country, if I had the opportunity to change something, it would be education, improving it as the basis of a better future for the next generations, thus ensuring that they do not have to live with what is happening now. I would also like to see more equality between the poor and the rich, for example, equal opportunity to study and also ensure that everyone has the basics to live. I care a lot about this issue because it hurts me to see so many families suffering and so much injustice in Colombia. Everyone should stop thinking only about their well-being and look beyond, not to find a temporary solution but a lifetime one.