Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Short and Bitter

“We are in a race between education and catastrophe.”    H.G. Wells.

 

I was going to title this “Short and Sweet” and just end with “Amen!” But this hard truth is anything but sweet. It’s the bitter truth that we have refused to face and hence, it is facing us down in the former of fires, storms, pandemics, crazy clowns blindly driving the cars on cliff’s edge and voters thinking they have a choice based on the tiny issue they care about. I rarely lay anything at the feet of teachers, since I know so many and 99% of them are caring, hard-working, knowledgeable and sincere. But the truth is that the terrors are at the windows and pounding on the door and we’re telling the children to keep filling out their math sheet. 

 

Okay, I’m not suggesting panic, but priorities. Every day I see our failure to have learned and to have taught what’s important in this time, in this place and trust me, it may start with 2+2=4 and Paris is the capital of France, but it needs to go light years beyond that. And it can’t wait for school budgets to be approved and arguments about the next sure-fire-technique-du-jour. 

 

And it needs to go beyond the kids in your class to everyone you come in contact with, including your stubborn brother-in-law who thinks he has the luxury to keep on as if everything is normal. You know what I’m talking about. 

 

Friends, we are losing this race. Gotta pick up the pace, look the truth in the face… okay, I can feel a pseudo-rap coming on, but I’ll desist, got to resist, get back to my list, raise up my fist and…

 

Well, you get the idea. Stick with the quote above and organize everything you do around that. 

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