If you need an example of the damage that the modern day publik skewl system does to children, look no further than the humble pencil, and the two very different tales about it.

Various commentators over at the Ace of Spaced HQ pointed out that it has become common for teachers to take students pencils, binders, &c. and redistribute them equally to the children:

“[At a] school in Seattle, a policy was instituted whereby all pencils are confiscated from individual students on day one, and henceforth collectively owned in a pencil pool. As a result, none of the students can be arsed to ever sharpen a pencil when it gets dull. They’ll just flick it in the trash bin, with 90% of its life left, and pull another sharp one out of the collective supply. “Result? By a few weeks into the academic term, none of the students have a decent pencil ‘available.'”

This is the very definition of communism being put into practice, and pushed upon unsuspecting children!

Unsurprisingly, the teachers, who are used to getting spiffy benefits by the forceful redistribution of other people’s money, complain when their communist schemes don’t work. they just demand more, as another commentator points out:

“Every teacher conference at my sons elementary school ended with, ‘can you bring in more pencils?'”

Yet this lesson in the failure of communism is twisted into screeds against the free market! Perhaps the teachers should pay attention to another tale of a pencil, this time one of the free market:

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