It steadily is in the news that public school curricula are teaching the wrong things. Even in colleges there is pressure to stop teaching liberal arts because it is useless and encourages meritocracy. Much of this interest in curricula is political of course, so mariner took it upon himself to analyze just a small piece of information taught in early grades that affects the children into their adulthood. To wit:

Mariner engaged in personal, scientific analysis of this poem. He discovered it is laced with blatant lies, and attacks the benefit of elitism as a stabilizing force in society.

As to the blackbirds in a pie, the author just didn’t know what they were saying. Did the author even try to bake a pie with blackbirds in it? Mariner did. Trust him when he says blackbirds do not sing after they’ve been baked; They smell God awful, too. Just the labor of catching 24 blackbirds makes the whole concept of a blackbird pie fallacious. Even claiming that blackbirds sing is a lie – they squawk.

Then the author over emphasizes the difference between the king, his wife, and the maid in the garden – suggesting that the right of the king to have a pie with blackbirds fawning over him, the queen to have bread and honey while a blackbird bites off the nose of the maid is a deliberate exaggeration of the differences in lifestyle between an honest employer and his employee.

It’s enough to make mariner want to run for the school board – almost.

Ancient Mariner