**Inspired by Serving in Florida, by Barbara Ehrenreich**

Picture a prisoner’s hell, better known as a prisoner’s reality, and I don't mean a life sentence or wrongful conviction. I mean windowless rooms, dark cold corners, paper thin walls, rickety chairs and tables, and a constant cold draft sweeping the hairs on the back of your neck. A stark contrast to the sparkling new multi million dollar three story addition. The social studies wing, also known as the dungeon, is a dark, cold place where children clock in to sit among the other lifeless robotic creatures-- taking notes and listening to lectures. Besides a flashy smart board, these rooms remain bleak and forgotten like factory floors, not ones gleaming with life, but rather barren and empty. Rows upon rows of faded green and beige rusty desks threaten to slice the animatronics that inhabit them. The off-white walls attempt to engulf the remainder of life out of the mental sweatshop as they inch their way inward minute by minute. Students despise the dungeon and the shuttering chills they receive from the mere sight of the rather depressing rooms and lumps of dust that reside in the corners, blanketing the floor, and covering the shelves. As we take our seats, we are asked, yet again, to take out our notebooks in order to take notes on the same repetitive material-- WWl, WWll, Vietnam war-- learned the year before only to have the same arbitrary notion for learning each unit: notes, activity, vocabulary packet, test, DBQ… notes, activity, vocabulary packet, test, DBQ. Learning is lost in this absent landscape.

The location of the social studies wing summarizes the whole situation, it’s in the basement. Compared to the upscale Nano-tech classrooms featured in the new wing, the Dungeon is shoved aside and forgotten. The entire department is located nearly one story underground. No wonder the desks threaten its occupants with its sharp corners; the walls are paper thin, and the blanket of dust seems to provide more heat than the central heating.