September 11, 2012
In the 60’s, space exploration was an American obsession. This hour of Radiolab, charting the path from romance to increasing cynicism.
We begin with Ann Druyan, widow of Carl Sagan, with a story about the Voyager expedition, true love, and a golden record that travels through space. And astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson explains the Coepernican Principle, and just how insignificant we are.
And so on Saturday night, in the heart of Paycheck Season, two games neared a climax: In Tallahassee, with Florida State leading 48-0, the Seminoles and Savannah State — not just a Football Championship Subdivision team, but one of the lowliest programs in the Subdivision Formerly Known as I-AA, a team that fell 84-0 to Oklahoma State the week before — agreed to play with a running clock. The 'Noles scored again, and then a rain delay gave the officials time to consult the NCAA's rules manual (King James version) to see if they could just call the whole thing off, thereby infuriating no one except a few masochists in Vegas who had parlayed the 70-point spread. Thus were renewed the annual set of questions about the haves enlisting the have-nots as chumps just so those chumps can afford to replace the pile carpeting in the locker room.
I used to feel this way a little bit.
I'm over it. I get to work with kids, play badminton and basketball, and I get summer and all major holidays off. I don't get paid as much as other people, but it's still a pretty sweet deal.
I quit teaching because I was tired of feeling powerless. Tired of watching would-be professionals treated as children, infantilized into silence. Tired of the machine that turns art into artifice for the sake of test scores. Tired of being belittled, disrespected and looked down upon by lawyers, politicians, and decision-makers who see teaching as the province of provincials, the work of housewives that can be done by anyone.
When the teaching profession loses respect, or ceases to become a profession, children pay the price. I'll borrow the Howard Gardner definition of a professional, which is as good as any:
A professional is a certified expert who is afforded prestige and autonomy in return for performing at a high level, which includes making complex and disinterested judgments under conditions of uncertainty. Professionals deserve to live comfortably, but they do not enter the ranks of a profession in order obtain wealth or power; they do it out of a calling to serve.
Today's Photo:
My buddy has a football pool where you pick eight winners every week. If anyone hits all eight, they win the pot.
Out of 68 tries, we have accomplished this twice.
It's harder than it looks.
You try it.
