The Beatles piece, "Imagine" is iconic in the music world. It gets significant airplay and is a familiar tune to most everyone. Simply hearing the melody, even without the lyrics, inspires our brains to transport us to other times and places. A current news story has given me pause to contemplate cause and effect of actions and reactions. In other words, my imagination has been activated.
As an educator who periodically was in charge of transporting large numbers of students, it was always foremost in my mind what a huge responsibility I had been given and, subsequently, accepted. I never took it lightly and all of my students always arrived, on time, safe and sound.
Imagine, if while on a bus trip to a competition, with twelve dozen or more young people - other people's children - under my supervision, I opened up my laptop and became engrossed in some game, program or app (as they are called today). The bus driver in the lead bus, my bus, has a question on how to get to our final destination and tries repeatedly to get my attention in order to ask a question regarding directions. I, concentrating deeply on my laptop, am unaware of the efforts to communicate with me and our bus contingency becomes lost. After the bus caravan drives aimlessly for a number of minutes, I re-engage myself into my surroundings, and direct the lead bus back on a course that eventually gets all of my students safely to the competition location, albeit forty-five minutes late. In the meantime, the parents have been waiting anxiously at the performance venue, wondering where their most precious possessions are.
Just imagine the deserved repercussions to me. Do you think for one moment that I would keep my job?
Ancora imparo
