Micah Zarin's Blog

The Lake Shore Drive Curriculum

Prompt: How can we reform the American education system to better serve the next generation?

Answer: I humbly propose we begin administering low-dose lysergic acid diethylamide to all American children, ideally sometime between the ages of 10 and 14, right around the age when they’ve just begun to suspect that adults are full of it, but haven’t yet developed the language to articulate why. I call it the Lake Shore Drive curriculum. The acronym is just a happy coincidence.

Preliminary findings (gathered through the rigorous scientific method of making things up) confirm the program poses no risk whatsoever to children. And even if it did, well, it’s not like the existing risks are yielding many functional organisms anyways. I mean what, truly, are we doing right now? Seriously. We give them state-mandated packets on the water cycle and then ask them to pledge allegiance to a flag. We teach them that mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell but don’t teach them what to do when the inside of their brain feels like a disused bowling alley echoing with the faint laughter of a man who does not exist. We make them run the mile. We give them five-paragraph essay rubrics and call it “critical thinking.” No. No no no. The children are not okay. Their frontal lobes are still in beta testing and we’re feeding them Lunchables and screen time and letting them decide what kind of person to be based on how many people like their instagram posts. This is malpractice.

So here’s the idea: a drop. Just one. Maybe two, if they’re in Honors Algebra. Not enough to send them to God; after all, I’m not talking about turning them into full-time interdimensional salamanders. I’m merely talking about a gentle, curated detonation of the self. Just enough to let them peek under the wallpaper. Call it preemptive epistemological enrichment. Call it science class. I don’t care. Just put it in the juice boxes and stand back. 

Let them walk into seventh period and realize that the kid they thought was annoying is actually made of stardust and repressed paternal trauma. Let them sit through a book report and feel time fold in on itself like a dying accordion. Let them feel the mitochondria. Then let them go home and eat a grilled cheese and sob about it. That’s education.

Education is supposed to do that. At least, it used to. The word itself comes from educere; to draw out, or to lead forth. Not to cram in, but to draw out what is latent, hidden, shimmering in the folds of an unformed mind. And yet: we have inverted it. We do not draw out; we drive in. We hammer and file and standardize until the spark is gone. Children who once screamed “why?” at every turn now whisper “whatever.” They learn to play school, not to learn. The Lake Shore Drive curriculum is my antidote.

I know the objections. I can already hear the pearl-clutchers: But safety! But risk! Please. Have you been to a middle school recently? There is more psychological volatility in a single seventh-grade lunch period than in an entire ayahuasca retreat populated exclusively by divorced men from Marin County. You want to talk about danger? These kids are going through puberty with nothing but Snapchat filters and orthodontia for armor. At least my method comes with perspective.

Think about the long-term outcomes. Less TikTok brain. Less blind consumerism. Imagine a generation of kids who, instead of screaming at each other about Instagram stories, sit cross-legged and say things like “I just think the boundary between self and other is a little porous.” Imagine an eighth-grade boy realizing he doesn’t want to make fun of the quiet girl, but instead he wants to ask her what she thinks happens after death. Imagine standardized testing replaced by collective ego death and a collaborative mural.

I know what you’re thinking: but what if some of them go weird? What if they never come back? First of all: weird compared to what? The current alternative is Johnny becomes a crypto bro at 17 and develops a caffeine addiction before he gets his learner’s permit. The bar is lower than the national reading level. Second: fine. Let them get weird. We need weird. The future is melting and we’re all on a sinking ship yelling about college admissions. Weird is the only dignified option left. The children are hollow-eyed and overstimulated and building PowerPoints about ancient Mesopotamia while spiritually dying inside. 

Give them a chance. Let them press their tiny hands to the fabric of reality and hear it whisper back. The children yearn for acid.

Adapted from the following post on my blog