The Time is ...

The time is … Today's date is October 13th. I just removed my September
desk calendar and updated everything for October. Why? I do not know since
I cannot find my calendar under the mess of my desk anyway. But what I do
find are these important scribbles on the right hand bottom corner: names
with a number or letter following; series of numbers; things that were important
when I wrote them as a reminder for myself. This week I was reading through
the local alternative newspaper
"The Shepherd
Express" and of course read my horoscope. (My favorite thought on horoscopes
are put forth in one of Douglas Adams' books: it seems that these two men
had a falling out over some nonsense like women or whiskey or something to
that effect. One of the men steadfastly read his horoscope everyday. The
other found himself a position with a newspaper to write the horoscopes for
the paper the first read. Of course the first man did not know this, but
he read his horoscopes more eagerly because they were always full of doom
and didn't just seem to address him personally, the second man deliberately
addressed the first man by name.)

Mr. Adams wrote it better than I can recreate it. So the horoscope I read
is not exactly accurate and sometimes is really funny. This week however
it mentioned that I would no longer be in a quandary about unsolved mysteries.
Not because I had solved those mysteries but because I was no longer interested
in solving them. While the author may have been cheeky in the unsolved mysteries
part I did reflect on this concept. Yes, I was no longer troubled by some
of those things that were bugging me in the beginning of the year. NOT because
I had solved them but because they no longer mattered. In a round about way
this is comparing my life with that other adage of "Don't sweat the small
stuff."

That brings me back to the calendar with my important scribblings which of
course are meaningless as we move on through time.

If moving through time can be viewed as meaningless then what are our roles
as educators? Is our role to teach important dates and facts and memorize
passages and figures? Or is it to teach the transference of knowledge? I
have on my desk a dog-eared photocopy of a paper by Jerome C. Harste of Indiana
University "To be literate, learners must be able to take what they know
and adapt it to their audience and situation". And this is where we are falling
flat on are backsides. We do not teach for transference. Instead we use a
"standardized test" and we teach the facts and figures which can then easily
and safely be tallied up as to whether they are right or wrong so that we
can supply a series of numbers which will eventually be scribbled in the
corner of someone's desk calendar.