The following is a brief excerpt from "The Life Of The Theatre", by Julian Beck (1972), but with the following four modifications: the word "school" was substituted for "theatre"; "teacher" for "actor"; "textbook" for "playwright"; and "children" for "people". No other changes were made to the text. It’s ironic that something intended for one application (theatre, in this case) reads so perfectly in another (education). ["Ah 'tis most sweet when in one line two crafts directly meet." -Hamlet, Shakespeare]

i start with questions because i have no answers.

what is the difference between questions and answers

is hamlet questioning his glory or his tragedy

why do you go to school

is it important to go to school

is it important to read

do people who go to school differ from people who don't go to school

what happens to you if you go to school

when you leave school have you changed that is of course you are changed by each moment of experience so three hours later you are naturally different but i mean have you changed actively

do you want to change actively

are you content

is it good to change

is anything sufficient unchanged

what am i talking about

do you go to school for answers

do you have any questions

how long is a lifetime

does it matter what happens

does it matter how long we live

does it matter how we live

why do i ask these simple questions that everyone must be asking all the time is it because i think you don't ask these questions

what is happening to us

what happens in school

do you go to school to find out about life

is it easier to observe life in school or in the street

have you experienced joy in school

have you experienced joy in the street

what do you enjoy

do you go to school for intellectual exercises

do you go to school to find out if it has figured out what is going on

do you go to school because it might be telling the truth

is anything that is the truth

are newspapers the truth

do textbooks record the truth more than editors

do newspapers lie do textbooks lie do teachers lie

do textbooks or editors or teachers lie deliberately

do you think that teachers should try to personify excellent being

what is excellent being

can an teacher show you excellent being

can an teacher show excellent being only when teaching

what is insight

do you use your insight

is it easy to ask questions

do you go to school with expectancy and hope

is school a way of learning things you do not know

what is learning for

are you certain of any answers

are all things equal

does anything have value

is it all right to kill sometimes

is it better to die than to kill

what does "better" mean in that sentence

should you kill someone to defend your property

should you put people in jail

do you make fun of certain groups of people

do you think some are just a little inferior

do you think some are decaying physically and mentally

do you lie

does it matter if you lie

how many times a day do you lie

do you find that you have to lie to get along in this world

are you content i ask again

are you content with anything

do you know how to love

do you love

are you loved

do you know how to hate

and do you

why do i prefer a disturbing school to a pleasing school tho i like to please

who are we where have we come from where are we going. gauguin.

must we love one another or die. auden.

what is the question. shakespeare. stein.

do you know that i have reached into my entrails and strewn them about the floor in the form of questions

do you know that i do not know what else to do

do you know that i need you that i am dying and will die without you

what is useful

what is a good question

what is a way to find answers

what will knock down the prison walls

what is the way

what is the relationship between the teacher and the learner

what is speech

what is the important inquiry

do we have time to ask all the questions

which ones do you want to ask

will you ask them now

what do we need

how can we get it

how can we touch one another

how can we make it happen

how can we make a school which is made of love

how can we make a school which is worthy of the life of its students

how can we make a school when we do not know any answers but only have vague hints about how to ask questions

how do we feed all the people

how do we stop the wars

how do we disintegrate the violence

how do we obliterate racism

how do we get rid of money

how do we undo early death

how do we end militarism

how do we put an end to authoritarian systems

how do we end the class system thing

how do we find the answers to these questions

how do we do it now?

i end with questions because i have no answers

but what i want is answers

...and i think that school is the Wooden Horse by which we can take the town

In the following (verbatim) excerpt, Beck speaks of theatre, but again, it could be read with schools in mind:

Is this a place for human beings, this insinuation, this delusion grandeur, this design? Is this where the Bird in Space has flown? Whom is this building for? Where are the children? What is happening that it does not speak to them? Walls of seclusion! O may our loud harangue cause the walls to tremble and fall, fall prisons, fall fortresses of false industry, fall houses of separation. When I sit down in a seat, if a person cries out, if someone dies, it only interrupts. I am not prepared to react to life. I only watch. Surrounded by cold comparisons in an atmosphere of deceit, I sit. Have I come here to die, frozen? How can I break thru to feeling? Can I transcend these surroundings, how can I find the key in this dark room? Only if I dream. But this dream is a lie, I feel nothing. It is all lies, it is fleshless, and fundamentally sexless. And by being there I make it happen. I know that I am not superior, but we make an experience that excludes, and we satisfy ourselves that the excluded don't want it or don’t deserve it. There is something wrong when I go somewhere whose province is the world and instead of being brought closer to the world I am cut off from it. Only when people are together and not set against one another, is there a harmony which dispels despair, extends being, and makes possible all the impossible hopes.

In this final (verbatim) excerpt, Beck speaks of television:

No matter how much information it supplies, it always makes the people weak, it takes away their power, it always makes them passive spectator, it never takes them to another life, another perception, cool aspects and all, dots and all, it diminishes awareness, it always says: I am the great machine, the miracular transporter of images through air, I am magic and you therefore believe in me (because magic depends on belief). I am strong and you are weak, I am power and you are flesh, I am intelligent and you are stupid, I speak and you listen, I am and you watch, I do not see you, I do not hear you, I do not care about you, I convert you into a sack to receive me, I convert you into a consumer society, consume my message, you are a thing that buys, you are a pouch for my insipid information, I do not want to touch you, I do not want to involve you, I want you to sit there, to be conditioned by your own passivity, go into debt to possess me, feel your weakness, feel my strength, worship me, desire me, be my slave.