I love cheesy songs. I grew up on New Kids On The Block, Milli Vanilli, MC Hammer and many other artists that are known today for songs that make us laugh. In fact, one of my favorite things is when my car gets it’s once or twice annual free preview of SiriusXM radio. I love the decade specific channels, particularly the 80’s on 8 and the 90’s on 9. I was listening to the 90’s on 9 on my way home the other day and reflecting upon all that had happened.
I began to get frustrated, as I sometimes do, with all of ridiculousness such as standardized tests, bureaucracy etc. that people in the education industry work within on a daily basis. With the radio playing and my reflection of the day's events quickly deteriorating into a pity party for one, I realized “The Sign” by Ace of Base was playing. The song was huge when it was released in 1993. If you wanted to be cool, and goodness knows I did, you knew this song, the words, the tempo, everything about it. It’s amazing (and quite embarrassing) how those things never leave you. I stopped my reflection turned pity party for a moment just to listen to the song and maybe do a little singing along when a line in the chorus struck me: “No one’s going to drag you up to get into the light where you belong.” It’s amazing how you can find something so profound lying within a song that definitely captures the cheese factor of the early to mid 90’s. It instantly made me think about my work as an educator and the pity party I was throwing myself. I’m one of the one’s being called to the task at hand, to revolutionize the education world but nobody is going to make me start that work. I will have take my own initiative. As educators, we must revolutionize the education world. It’s been said that we’re preparing kids today for careers that don’t yet exist. But education is about more than preparing someone for a job that they’ll have. Education is about creating a passion for a life full of learning that is not just fun, but necessary in a world where every 12-18 months computers double their capabilities. Nobody is going to do this for us but when we get the ball rolling, you can guarantee that we will be in the light where we belong. We have to empower ourselves to bring about the changes we seek. The best news is that we’re in the business of empowerment. We couldn’t be more qualified for the job.
1 Comment
Philip Elsbecker
7/15/2017 09:06:58 pm
Hey Mr. Lahey,
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