eLearning2 initiative nears completion

In a surprising press release this week, sources within Edina confirmed that the E-Learning squared initiative would continue to grow in power. An article on edinaschools.org entitled “School Board approves eLearning2 expansion plan” said “After months of planning, advocating and forcibly silencing all opponents, the School Board has given Edina Public Schools Digital Media & Technology Services (DMTS) the green light to expand the district’s eLearning2 program into an invasion of all aspects of the lives of all Edina citizens.”

The initiative, beginning in January of last year, has already expanded its borders beyond the simple ideas of its inception. “When we started out, it was just a simple plan to give middle schoolers laptops and eventually overthrow the government. From there, we have grown to help students in elementary schools get computers, hire helpers to fix problems with these computers, and installed mind-controlling chips into the brains of each and every student grades 5-12,” said Director of Media and Technology Steve Buettner.

While the vote for the expansion was voted for unanimously by the school board, sources say that it wasn’t easy for eLearning2 to achieve its overwhelming popular vote. “When I first came up with the idea to put a personal computer, along with a tiny evil eLearning-bot, in the book bag of every Edina student there were many who stood against me. Naysayers said that it was too expensive or it would distract students from learning or it was simply another step in my immortal quest to conquer the world. But through community support and violent repression of all my enemies I have achieved my goal, and none can now stand in my way!” said Buettner.

Although an outline presented to the school board for the initiative’s completion included expanding price cuts on laptops to elementary and high schools and building a giant green and white robot with laser-beam eyes to destroy Eden Prairie, at press time Buettner couldn’t be reached for elaboration on these vague propositions as he was battling his genetically modified super soldier arch-nemesis atop a flying aircraft carrier hovering over Pamela Park.

Best Bits of College Advice *

1. “I don’t care if you want to study history or engineering or writing or whatever. You’re taking general studies whether you want to or not.”

2. “Here’s what you do: throw scalding coffee at each of the headmasters of the schools that you’re considering. Whichever one forgives you first is the school you go to.”

3. “So Florida State is good enough for your Crazy Uncle Al but it’s not good enough for you?”

4. “Go wherever you think that you’ll be the least happy, since the more miserable your college experience is, the more depressing poetry you can write.”

5. “When you look around the campus, ask yourself the question ‘Is this the kind of place I can see myself getting into a mindless, monotonous routine?’”

6. “As an admissions counselor for The University of Denver, it’s my personal opinion that you should go to The University of Denver.”

7. “There’s only one thing worse than a communist: an elitist. Don’t go to college.”

8. “In my younger and more vulnerable years, I was educated in New Haven. Later I was involved in a sad, violent tale of excess, murder, and unrequited love. There’s a lesson here, kids: never be educated in New Haven.”

9. “It says here that Reed College has a student-run nuclear reactor and a super high rate of drug use by the student body. What more could you want?”

Beauty and the Beast review*

South View Middle School’s adaptation of the musical based on the Disney movie “The Beauty and the Beast” was by all accounts charming, well performed, and enchanting. Its greatest quality, perhaps, isn’t the singing or dancing. It is how the cast of 6th through 9th graders were able to so competently encompass all the hyper-capitalist, pro-free market, and violently anti-communist themes addressed in the original fable.

From the very opening of the musical, the anti-socialist message is clear almost to the point of being heavy handed. It opens with a character, known only as “The Young Prince” and later “The Beast” (played to perfection by Jonah Calvo and Xander Idrogo-Lam) being assailed by a poor, elderly, obviously communist woman asking him for some hospitality, or, more properly, a handout. The Young Prince, being a wise economist, obviously refuses the demands of this lazy beggar, who in turn transforms him into a terrifying beast. This transformation is a very obvious but nevertheless apt metaphor for the transformation of successful, legitimate businessmen into monsters by the public eye.

The play then shifts in time and place to a small, presumably socialist french village, where the main character, Belle, and her father are persecuted intellectuals and entreprenuers who are not allowed to advance to their rightful role in society by their ignorant proletariat neighbors. Through a series of events, Belle finds herself trapped in the castle in which The Beast is being kept. The castle itself is a metaphor for the means by which the rightfully wealthy are sometimes forced to seclude themselves from the general public, and the beast’s servants, strange animated objects like teacups and cupboards, are metaphors for the middle class who are all too often represented by what they own rather than who they truly are.

Once Belle and The Beast have fallen in love, the villagers attempt a revolution against the assailed Prince and his friends. Through murder of the revolution’s leader, The beast finally regains his human form, freed from the anger of the lowest classes after slaying their leader. He then goes on to marry Belle and the two live happily ever after.

Some may say that directors Erica Gardener and Jim Hawthorne didn’t go far enough with the capitalist themes, especially when compared to Walt Disney’s hyper-capitalist original animated film. But the keen viewer will see that the musical goes to lengths to make their work even more controversial than the movie. For example, the enlargement of the role of LeFou, a caricature of the ignorant, fat communist, was a bold move by those crafting the production.

All in all, I think audiences will be deeply influenced by this bittersweet love letter to the free market disguised almost seamlessly as a musical. I for one left the theater ready to physically attack the socialist and communist factions operating within the Edina Public School system at this very moment.