Before we get back on track with our Pro Pix Tips series on composition I would like to toss out this post which is a sort of follow up of the last one. We were discussing opinions and how they really control our lives. After posting that to the blog I was reminded of a story that I had related to some folks I know that took place about 6 years ago. I thought that it truly had some merit to what I was trying to point out in the last post. I hope it helps you get a clearer picture of what I was trying to convey.
Some people I know had a child attending one of the areas elementary schools. Like most parents I know they would check out the child's back pack when they got home from school in order to check for notes from the school teacher and to glance at the work they were doing. As they were looking through some math work sheets they were happy to see the high scores in view of the fact that their child had been having trouble in the past with their understanding of math. Their happiness quickly changed to bewilderment when they began noting that many of the math problems had been incorrectly answer yet were not marked so. Prompted by this they began looking through the rest of the math work sheet not only from that day but from the last week and noted there were numerous such incidents. The parent asked for an received a time to have a meeting with the child's teacher to solve this obvious oversight. Image the surprise of the parent when the teach disagreed with the parent that the answers were incorrect. The parent ask the teach since when had 7 plus 8 equal 12? The parent noted that when they graduated from school those numbers equaled 15. The teacher asked the parent to read the instructions that were on the work sheet. They read something like add the two numbers together to come up with an answer to the problem. The teacher explained to the parent that in the case of 7+8 the child did what the instructions had told them to do. Since 12 was greater than the larger of the two numbers the child had successfully add the two numbers together even though the sum was incorrectly calculated. Therefore the answer was partially correct and therefore not completely wrong. Only if the calculated answer had been 8 or less would the answer been incorrect and mark as such. In short an incorrectly calculated answer could still be correct even if only partly so. When asked how the teacher expected the child to learn what the correct answer was the teacher said that they felt that in time the student would discover what the correct answer was. In the mean time they didn't want to demean the child or give them any cause to feel they were a failure especially when they partially answered the problem correctly. Now I don't know about you but if I had teachers like that when I was in school I would have gotten a scholarship to Harvard. Now I have to tell you that even though I had no reason to doubt their story I still found another family I knew pretty well and asked them about it being that there child attended the same school but in a different grade. They didn't hesitate one second in confirming the story with as similar one of their own. It would seem that the process of formulating an answer is more important the obtaining the correct answer. Would you like your doctor to operate that way. "Well I took his blood pressure and listen to his heart with my stethoscope and thought all he had was a chest cold but the autopsy said he actually had a heart attack. I didn't see that coming!"
I would suggest to the teacher as well as to all of you that when 7+8 is calculated to equal 12 that there is something wrong with the process of formulating an answer. Left unchecked our reluctance to risk demeaning the child could lead to coming up with opinions that can screw a lot of peoples lives up royally. It is due to this kind of reasoning that leads to people calculating that because they can drive to the store, use a microwave oven and put food out on a table, they are chefs.
I can see that kind of reasoning on display today even in my own life. Simply going through the motions of making a decision makes no difference if we elect to come up with a solution we have derived from misunderstandings and pipe dreams that paint a false picture of greener grass that's just a mere decision away. Many times there is no such thing as a do over when we discover the truth.
The Good Book say that the truth will set us free. To do that we have to be able to separate the truth from opinion or false truths as they are know by in some circles. We must be truthful to ourselves first because it we can't be truthful to ourselves well..........I think you got the idea.
Good opinions come from sound reasoning which comes from our desire to research and discover the correct solution to the situation. If it's worth doing than it's worth doing it right. The rats calculated that it was a good idea to run after the pied piper but from all accounts I'v seen they appeared to have miscalculated. The moral to that part of the story is don't be a under informed rat cause you may wind up in a place that there may be no return. That would be bad!
We'll hit the old composition series with the next post. With that in mind I think I smell cookies. What does that have to do with composition? You'll have to check out the next PPTs to find out.
Have a great day everybody!
Richard
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