the education system in d12 is designed to tell the story of Panem top down, spreading the story the capitol wants people to hear.
While this could be a post about Katniss’s conclusion and the disillusionment/disinterest in the classroom hunger causes in poorer areas (career school lunches vs other districts), it’s more so interesting to me what we can dissect from how they’ve constructed their education system.
We know they have math and “basic reading”, history of Panem, and basic geography (capitol built in a place called the rockies, d12 Appalachia, etc.).
I find the adjective in “basic reading” fascinating. They are taught how to read fundamentals. We know katniss can read and write, but that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone in d12 is literate. They lack the instruction and practice for the learned skill of deeper reading. Engaging, analyzing, and interacting with texts critically. They, therefore, are more susceptible to propaganda. Basic reading begins and ends with the letters on the page. They are more deposed to believing written text than unpacking it and engaging with it. This is purposeful. It makes it so much easier to control a group that lacks the skillset to be able to understand undertones. The capitol can write it wants to.
The two most important things to the captiol are revealed through the school system: patriotism and complacency. Patriotism is injected through the weekly lessons on Panem’s history, whereas complacency arrives at a more local level: district work.
While there is likely some sporting, as we know through Peeta and his brothers, there is no class to directly benefit or prepare the children for the games. They don’t have a survivalism elective, which would help with both the games and d12 life, because it would make the students less dependent upon the captiol for necessities. There would be less of an incentive for tesserae enrollment and more of a self-sufficiency that they’ve already banned in other areas (hunting, gathering outside of the fence, trading in the Hob).
Every moment the students spend in the classroom is designed to draw them deeper into complacency by giving them just enough to feel like they know something. Once they know how to read, they can read the propaganda from the capitol, but they’re not taught how to challenge it. Once they know how to do basic math, they can balance the books of the mines or their shops.
Except the story where Peeta knew he was a goner in music assembly that very first day, or the “mountain airs” as Katniss’s music teacher calls old songs, there’s no sign that they learn about local history (outside of the district labor). Not about the rebellions in Appalachia, or unions, or the fight for personal freedoms in those mountain, but all Captiol and Panem history. There’s no personal identity, just the collective, patriotic history.
As such, everything becomes mythology. The history of the Hob. The meaning of the fence (to keep us safe vs to cage us in). Local stories become true, passed around between generations. Mountain airs take on new meanings. And the only “truth” people have is constructed from the top down.
And despite this brainwashing, Katniss never thinks the solution is the Games.
