Spanish views from a small town

Ignorance is bliss. That is what our educational system seems to think. Bliss for the politicians, because if the electorate never learns to think, then the electorate can be told what to believe and whom to keep in power. To the electorate's loss. But that bliss also comes at a personal cost to all those educated in it. It means not being aware of intellectual riches to be found in our past and in our literature and culture. Riches that can make life a little more comfortable spiritually. But that implies thinking, and that's dangerous for those in power. I mentioned one of these past days that I had to read literature from the Spanish Golden Age for my Spanish classes in high school. I casually asked a high school student yesterday if he had read anything by Tirso de Molina or Pedro Calderón de la Barca in school. He thought Calderón de la Barca was a line of designer clothes. The kid is in the equivalent of eighth grade. By then I had already long discovered who Shakespear...