As a graduate, I have hated the very idea of school all my life

Have a seat, let's talk about the education system. My disclaimers here will be: I will speak as someone who HAS HATED THE VERY IDEA OF SCHOOL ALL HER LIFE. I've never been to a school I liked, I don't talk to a single one of my former classmates from anywhere save for one - because he's a family friend. There is not a single teacher I want to remember for anything except Mrs. Wasuna - she discovered this writing thing in me.

School was HORRIBLE. (I'm still deciding if I want to give my children a childhood they have to recover from.) Here is why...

You don't learn much. I'm a kinda sorta slow learner but I have a great memory. For instance,everything I know in math was taught to me by Baba or Mama. If they weren't there to patiently explain it to me, then I still don't have the concept down. The little you do learn ‘is’ all the wrong things. School teaches you fear. It teaches you to accept your place in society and to do as little as possible to change it. I have friends who were beaten for failing in a subject yet the teacher was molesting the girls in her class. Tell me how that child is supposed to grow up thinking justice is worth it. One time, a teacher beat me up so badly because I stumbled while taking my seat and thus disrupted his sentence. When I told my dad about it, he went to school and had a chat with him... but the guy still didn't apologize - let alone try to do any better - because men don't apologize to children. Heck, he should be behind bars.

When I see people say that indiscipline is the reason behind the schools going up in flames, that teachers need more disciplinary authority over the kids, I want to chew them up and spit them out some place real close to their father, the evil one. Are you out of your minds? Has any one of you tried to hear these kids out? How is a child who is being sexually harassed, fed something close to dog food and worse supposed to be amused with their teachers? More disciplinary measures meaning what? That kids should now dig trenches and uproot tree stumps with their toes since their bare hands are not enough anymore? They should spend the full term cutting napier grass and fetching water for new buildings coming up as opposed to half term? More discipline because they don't spend enough time unblocking sewers at school, slashing grass, harvesting the principal's produce, getting beaten, and being insulted. Kenyan teachers don't know what discipline is. They know how to be colonial slave drivers. This year alone we have had more than twenty cases reported of teachers who have either killed or maimed children in the name of discipline. If you think these children need more discipline because they don't want to be lying cold in a cemetery by a teacher's hand, then may their blood be upon you. You're the, "Racism is dead and all lives matter anyway!", foolery-wielding voice at a black man's funeral. A black man whose cause of death we all know.

Also, do you truly mean to say that you are that unbothered by the ailings of your child? Are you out here telling the world that if you have to choose between an angry, suicidal, vindictive child and reason you will pick the former because discipline? "We survived so they should too." Uuuuummmm... you're a dysfunctional adult, trying hard to not be an alcoholic and failing fast because you survived. You are an engineer who needs help from a Chinese prisoner to build a road but you survived. Stem cell research is a thought far beyond you, oh practicing scientist who never forgets to remind us of your profession, but you survived. You can't have a relationship that doesn't include abuse and self harm because a teacher touched you around but you survived. Why do we even sympathize with these people? These kids are telling us, "We don't want to just survive. We want to do better. Be better. We don't want to have to unlearn everything we are taught in school just to design a small kitchen gadget after six years of mechanical engineering. We want better for ourselves. And we are the generation that wants better for our children. Fear is dysfunctional and we are tired of being afraid for our very lives. Education should not be a minefield. Other kids on YouTube have shown us that it is possible to get educated without being hated. We want that."

Folks out here saying, "These kids should be grateful they even have schools." If you have said something close to that, there must be a witchdoctor being consulted against you to make your life backward and retrogressive. Children should not be grateful to have a state sanctioned human rights' abuse system. The bare minimum should not be our standard. A child shouldn't be grateful to be eating weevils in their beans and oily top layer. No one should ever have their sense of worth so shrivelled that they are grateful to have a violence and insults camp that they live in for nine months a year. While we are at this, why do we talk of single motherhood being a moral concern when children are in school all day hearing how much of irresponsible, not beautiful, horrible, malayas they are? They should be grateful they get to be called stupid and their dyslexia undiagnosed for a full twenty years? Or they should be grateful that opportunities to explore technology are constantly taken away from them because the existence of a national examination is more important than their education? Should our children be grateful to be learning, “a mouse is a pointing device” when other children are building apps? Thank you very much Matiang'i and co for taking huge salaries for yourself, spending hundreds of millions in conferences to decide which is the next best insult to our children. Congratulations, the nation is truly blessed to have you. We are so much wiser because of you.

I was in St. George's Girls’ Secondary School Nairobi for slightly over two years in high-school. A teacher from there recently stopped to say hi to me on the streets and I tried my best to not hit her on the head with one of the two blunt and heavy things I was carrying. I remembered how her idea of educating the nation was to tell us about all the Ds we will get, the abortions we will have, the umalaya inside us, how ugly and unsightly we were and the incurable stupidity that plagued our existence. When she said hi, I asked her if she's proud of herself. If she gets any satisfaction from stealing bags of crisps from teenagers while in her fifties because discipline. If all that cocoa she made us hide was of any value to her. Like come on! You're a grandmother and two teaspoons of drinking chocolate are your concerns in life? I asked if she goes home patting herself on the back for having a shout-down with a crying child. I asked if she can honestly claim to have educated the doctors and lawyers and businesswomen taking the next generation by storm seeing as she found them inherently stupid. She said I'm bitter. I'm cool with that. Whiskey, chilli, sriracha, wild veggies and other great foods - I'm in awesome company at the bitter table if you ask me.

Listen to the kids. They are not irrational. You are!

Now that the issue is burning of schools, I have another question. How come schools almost always only burn in July? Why do dormitories like to catch fire when principals are about to get investigated for their resource management? Why don't we arrest principals as well when schools burn?

Another question; why do we have cabinet secretaries for education who are not educators? A man with a PhD who has hardly taught a class is educated - like many in Kenya are. He is not an educator. The ministry of education should be headed by a person who has spent at least twenty years in class and produced successful students. Ask James Mwangi of Equity Bank who his teachers were. They have served the nation. Ask Boniface Mwangi to nomimate a teacher who contributed to his fearlessness. Ask Suzie Wokabi, Caroline Mutoko, and others which teachers did a good job in their lives. Ask Brian Weke which teachers gave him a heart to fight for the rights of children in court. Find out from our best professionals, innovators and thinkers who taught them well. Those are the people who ought to head our education system. Recipients of the system, as opposed to contributors to the system, have proven to only know how to fill their bellies and issue threats to sixteen-year-olds.