Most academics live and breathe in a world of highly centralized disciplinary jargon. This jargon helps to foster communication within respective fields; however, the same jargon that benefits communication among peers has dug a distinct moat around their ivy layered halls. >
Tag: education
Get to the Underline
“The Unexamined life is not worth living.” ~Socrates
When we think about our lives, we rarely think about our lives. No, the previous sentence is not a typo, it is a belief. Maybe a better articulation is to write the sentence: When we think about our lives, we rarely think about our lives. The underlined “think” is essential, for it differentiates the same word in two radically different connotations; “think” means the normal definition of the word, whereas think is a deeper meaning that includes a significant commitment. We must strive for the underline. (A similar pattern is exuded in reading: one can read a book, or one can read a book.)
You Aren’t My Hero
What is a hero? Someone successful? Someone who did something no one else did? Someone who risked his/her life?
John Maxwell and Big Brother
I just concluded rereading George Orwell’s grim novel 1984. The book painted a bleak picture of our future; however, such a future filled with “Big Brother,” “Thought Police,” and criminalization of nearly everything we enjoy, never came to exist (and I will venture to guess that it never will). Thought the fictitious world will remain fiction, one pillar of the made-up governmental structure remains terrifying to me: “Ignorance is Strength.”
Pins, Perils, and Pigs
The founder of modern economics, Adam Smith, argued for specialization during his discussion of the pin factory. Smith noted that individuals working in a factory were able to make somewhere between one and twenty pins in a day; however, if there were to be a group of pin makers who would specialize in each section of the pin making process, the production would go much quicker. How quick? Smith estimated that ten people working alone could make between 10 and 200 pins a day, but with ten people uniquely specialized to contribute to each step of the process, there could be around 48,000 pins produced a day.
Death by Guidance
High school guidance counselors play a game with the objective to win. Sadly those victories come at the cost of the students in which the counselors serve. What I mean to say is: high school counselors do not always have their students’ best interests in mind.
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