Tuesday, 10 March 2020

The Enchanted Halls of Pseudo-Academia: A Satirical Reflection

 

The Enchanted Halls of Pseudo-Academia: A Satirical Reflection

Once upon a time, in the fabled lands of higher education, there stood a majestic enclave of erudition known as The Grand Women's College of Facades. Here, the bastions of learning were not the formidable libraries or the state-of-the-art labs (for they existed only in whispers and brochures), but rather the endless rehearsals of an ornate performance called "pretense."

Within these hallowed halls, the faculty - a merry band of jesters adorned with doctoral bonnets - tread carefully on the tightrope of educational theater. It was not knowledge they imparted but the artful dodging of substance. Here, the Shakespearean quill had been traded for smokescreens, and Socratic dialogues for endless monologues about personal achievements.

In the common rooms, you'll find teachers engaged in fervent debates - not about pedagogies or philosophies, alas! They wrangle over the size of their office chambers and the placement of their dedicated parking spots. Occasionally, one might overhear talk of a new curriculum, promptly followed by laughter, for who needs progress when you can forever bask in the glory of a dusty plaque announcing a once-achieved accreditation?

The curriculum, an antique piece of paper preserved in the College's mausoleum of ancient relics, spoke of courses and seminars, laboratories and fieldwork. Yet, the most frequented fields were those of self-appreciation, and the favored streams of study involved navigating the rivulets of the administration's good graces.

The ten-year plan for the college's development was its best fiction. Crafted with the delicacy of word-weavers, it promised revolutions of academic excellence and groundbreaking research initiatives. These, regrettably, would come to fruition in a future as distant as Narnia itself, with requirements as far-reaching as catching a falling star.

Students, the purported heart of the institution, learned quickly the art of navigating the fantastic labyrinth of ‘doing much about nothing.’ Adorned in academic regalia, these damsels not-in-distress mastered the jargon of inquiry without the inconvenience of investigation, and the rhetoric of revolution without the blunder of belief.

Extracurricular activities swirled around fundraising galas and fashion shows draped in the language of empowerment. On occasion, a lonesome book club would attempt to summon the goddess of Literature, to no avail, for even she got lost amidst the convoluted corridors that echoed with words devoid of meaning.

When dusk fell upon this educational charade, the faculty member, our disillusioned protagonist, would retire to a chamber of silent reflection, a glass of cynicism in hand. Staring out the window overlooking the courtyard of vanity, they'd smirk at the scholarly masquerade, all the while nursing dreams where learning once flourished.

And so, in the Grand Women's College of Facades, the show goes on, a magnificent ball of scholarly pantomime, with every pirouette and flourish bereft of conviction but brimming with the grandiose illusion of enlightenment. In this institution, any resemblance to actual education is purely coincidental and any disruption to the status quo is but an unseemly apparition – swiftly exorcised by the guardians of the façade.