How I Would Teach High School Economics
by Derek Swart
There would be no textbook and no lecture slides.
We would have no assignments but
we would have work—
oh yes—
we would have work in spades.
Each day, every student would bring in something they love:
a memory of family;
their first kiss;
the best book they ever read, the one that made them weep and laugh
and breathe in the pages and
when they finished,
hold it to their chest as they wait to exhale
the last air they took in before the end,
as if anything beautiful could become permanent.
Class will begin with their love,
an offering placed in front of the student,
their fingers folded in shaking temples on their desks,
their hearts hammering like regime-changing gunfire.
(The best lessons will include an informal discussion of
what each child loves.)
And then,
with the joy of a greasy and perspiring stage magician,
I would let the monster out of the closet.
At first, the monster is lovely, I will tell them, and what I mean is
You will love it. It is a monster
of freedom,
I will tell the class.
It resembles a mouth and a mouth only, I will say,
but it contains an opening for excrement as well.
And our monster may be different,
but it also may be the same monster as other classes: one being
with maws
around the globe.
It will then bite a student,
and harm them beyond repair.
They will not recover, and
the school will not be liable;
having your sinews raked from your arm and your
bones scored and furrowed is a preexisting condition.
The biting, I tell them, is a feature of the class,
and not a flaw.
It is an expected behavior.
They are privileged
to be bitten, and every bite they receive is necessary,
for it may prevent them from being bitten later,
though it also may not. Economics is not a hard science,
though I will tell them it is.
We will return to the mouth. I will show them that
it will consume—
flesh,
matter,
anything really—
but it will never digest.
It is never nourished. The monster is
a marvel of physics. It is
never nourished,
though it does
consume,
and it does
excrete.
You will think,
I will tell them—and they will be right—
that it
excretes more
than it
consumes.
They will measure the excretions, using their
bare, ungloved, bleeding hands.
They will stack the excreta,
loads of its leavings
for the learning objectives.
Once, the monster—
eyeless and furious and hungered—
had teeth. Some were preserved, for education
and are still sharp. When students cut their fingers,
the school will not be responsible,
which I will tell them as
I toss them teeth for examination.
Tears will be expected.
Blood too.
How did the teeth shatter? they will ask. It will be hard to hear the question because the monster is always screaming,
and it is very likely the
student sobbing.
The teeth shattered, I will reply,
trying to keep my voice neutral and professional—
even I, the teacher, succumb to mindless panic at times—
The teeth shattered—
They shattered—
because the monster is so hungry
it chewed through its own jaws, pieces of teeth
and blood and slather,
careening and pasting on every surface.
I will use a laser pointer to indicate the wounds,
self-inflicted,
which suppurate even years later, and I will also tell them
the force of the bite,
(of its own cannibalistic hunger)
fractured its teeth
suddenly and over time
and when it bites today, its
broken jaw bones provide
most of the ripping and tearing and scissoring.
I will assure them that the monster feels no pain, but
I will not believe myself.
I will remember when
the screams from the monster were more hunger than pain.
It will not be on the curriculum to examine the past.
I will not share my own opinions.
Each day, one student will be asked—entreated,
coerced—
called upon—at random perhaps, but sometimes it doesn’t seem random—
and they will feed the monster
what they love:
their dog or cat,
their books,
first kisses—innocent and pure and immediate—
and the monster will eat everything.
Students may sift through the excreta, but their love
may have changed.
Derek Swart is a high school English teacher from Minnesota locked in a death-grapple with Sam Altman. He’s trying to teach in the aftermath of The Surge and maybe writing a little on the side. This is his first published poem.
Image Credit: Door (2026) by Line Lizard
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