They Come With Stardust on Their Fingertips

And then we take them to school.

Brilliant little creatures, fresh out of the cosmos, still dripping with stardust and universal secrets, and we… hand them a worksheet.

“Circle the verb, Timmy.”

Because that’s what matters, right? Identifying verbs. Forget the fact that Timmy just asked why the moon follows us when we drive. Let’s shut that down real quick before he starts thinking too much.

We call them rebellious when they resist the monotony of bells and plastic chairs. We diagnose them when they wiggle and fidget and ask too many questions. We punish them for not wanting to sit still for six hours straight while we download the same outdated data into every skull like we’re programming machines instead of nurturing mysteries.

And the irony? We still call it education.

We—“adults,” a term we wear like a badge while throwing temper tantrums on social media—think we know better. We think we’re the wise ones, because we pay taxes and know how to microwave dinner. Meanwhile, the four-year-old in the corner is busy trying to remember where they left their wings.

They’re not disobedient. They’re confused.

They come here burning bright, open, curious. They talk to trees, see faces in clouds, hear the silence between notes. And what do we do? We tell them the tree is just a plant. The cloud is just water vapor. The silence? Just emptiness.

No wonder they start to dim.

We don’t teach them to think—we teach them to comply. Smile when spoken to. Sit up straight. Don’t question the authority that makes no sense. That’s the real curriculum. Algebra is just the decoy.

And God forbid they say “no.” We slap labels on them faster than a Black Friday sale. Defiant. Disruptive. Difficult.

But maybe, just maybe, they’re the sane ones in an insane system. Maybe they’re not broken. Maybe they’re unbreakable, and we hate that. Maybe we fear their clarity, because it reminds us of what we lost the moment we traded our truth for a job title and a pension plan.

They don’t need fixing.

We do.

So maybe next time a kid looks you dead in the eye and asks why adults lie, instead of chuckling and brushing it off, sit your grown-up ass down and answer. Maybe when they cry because the ant got stepped on, don’t tell them “it’s just a bug.” Maybe they’re feeling something you forgot how to feel.

Maybe, just maybe, they’re not the students.

Maybe they’re the teachers.

And we’re just the tired, cynical, spiritually bankrupt humans who showed up late to class.