| This thesis employs an artistic-creative methodology. The author wrote a dystopian sequel to A. A. Milne's children's story about the Hundred Acre Wood. The novella embodies some of the tragedies and wounds resulting from forced, industrialized precollegiate education. Adolescents in the story illustrate the problems of disconnection from nature, from self, from community, and most of all from the life force of curiosity. In addition to this reworked myth, the author constructed an argument, set out in the draft outline contained in Appendix B, for a return to the value of curiosity. This is an ongoing work arguing society has overvalued money, social and economic hierarchy, habit, and efficiency at the expense of honoring the life force inherent in the many aspects of curiosity. It serves the wrong gods in an attempt to educate the young. |
