Fortune Cookie
Craing and I went to a local Asian food place today. We both had the daily special, which had a wide variety of flavors in it. It was good food. It was also a little expensive, but it’s a rare treat that I can pay cash for from time-to-time. Of course, at the end of the meal, we both got fortune cookies. I don’t like fortune cookies all that much, but today I decided to crack mine open and eat it. The fortune inside the cookie read:
The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.
I liked it enough to keep it. It just seemed to be so true. Thinking back on all of the discoveries that we’ve made over the years, they all start as an idea, a philosophy if you will. Many ideas don’t pan out, but enough of them do that we call it progress.
Our students today take for granted that there are three basic laws of physics, that electrons move from shell to shell in chemical reactions, that certain biological factors are necessary for life, and so much more. I know that I did. While learning all of these great philosophies in school, I never did stop to think too much on how they came about. My public school education required me to read, listen, absorb, and regurgitate. It was a rare teacher (Mr. Landrum, Ms. Setzer, Mr. Franks, Dr. Rucker, Mr. Vetter, Mrs. Ward, Mr. Bell, Mrs. Armstrong and maybe a few others) that really challenged me to think outside the box.
These teachers really changed my life for the better, and I think that is one of the reasons that I want to be a teacher. I want to touch lives for the better. I want to make a difference in the world outside my immediate grasp. If I can bring some of my (limited) wisdom and knowledge to the forefront, and unselfishly give it to another, then they may be able to take that knowledge to another level to make the world better.
Maybe, just maybe, one of my philosophies of this world will become the next generation’s common sense.
