Cereal Narratives

Today is Wednesday. I've not heard anything from the middle school that I interviewed at last Friday. The AP said she'd make a decision by the middle of the week. By my reasoning, Wednesday is the middle of the week. If I don't hear something today, I think my chances of getting this position are about as soggy as a bowl of cereal in too much milk. Driving to school today, I realized that other than one job I interviewed for in 2003, I've generally always gotten the jobs for which I have applied, so it's a whiz in my Wheaties every time I don't get these little jobs. I know, I know, jobs are tough for everyone to come by, but still, I am having a hard time swallowing this bowl of bull.

In order to ease into sleep-mode last night, I picked up a copy of Classic and Contemporary Essays on Education (sounds like a snoozer, I realize) and thumbed to a piece by Immanuel Kant. At the top of the excerpt was a brief introduction by the editor on Kant's thoughts about education, which apparently are not widely referenced in the field of Education itself. Kant felt pretty much the same as I wrote about in my post Running with the Devil: children should be taught how to think and reason in order to make what they do have any meaning in society. It's not just enough to earn one's way in the world; the motivation behind the actions of a person are more important than the actual outcome. For example, if one starts a charity, the moral impact of that action on society depends on whether the charity is set up for true humanitarian purposes or for a tax write-off--regardless of how many people may benefit from the charity itself. Thus, I inferred, that an educated citizenry must act out of intelligent reasoning, fully comprehending the impact that actions have on society, rather than simply from some pre-programmed responsibility, guilt, or self-serving accomplishment.

Kant also said that children shouldn't be compared to animals when it comes to education. Oops, my bad--see my post It's a Dog's Life. He said animals are trained, and children must be taught to reason. I must agree with this despite my previous post because to "train" students means to indoctrinate them in some rote process. Heck, you can train a monkey, a dog, or a bird-brain for that matter. Teaching children to reason means to empower them to take control of decisions that affect the world. There must be no "sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come," as John Lennon wrote in "I am the Walrus."

Yeah. Koo, koo, ka-choo.