These are the days when you wonder why you took up the education profession...
It's the end of the school year and kids don't want to work at all...
We've got two sets of parents threatening legal or political action if we don't accomodate their really pretty whiny demands for their children...
And all the while all of us have been forgiving all sorts of disrespect and insults and all kinds of nasty behavior from the kids...
And it all does make you wonder why you do it...
I guess the only answer to that, for me, is that it's the only work I know where I feel like there's the strongest hope for resolving all kinds of issues that persist in our communities and societies...in a world where we constantly ignore efforts that fail or are counterproductive to our goals...education, generally -- meaning K-12 and university and post-high school education -- is the one place where there is such substantial hope that people can be better...
Because it's the one place where they do the thing that is most likely to make them better people...
Learning...serious learning...
I want so badly to get back into a college course...and just study, again...for its own sake...completely independent of work I may do in the world...
It's one of the most satisfying feelings in the world...
And I just feel so sad and angry and frustrated that so many kids and so many adults never have that feeling because they so persistently take for granted the institutions and opportunities that make that experience possible for them...
I've got a meeting I have to get to...
Have a good week, everyone...
Ben
