Opus 2015-136: I Am the Frog

I had a rude awakening recently.

I am sure you have heard that if you put a frog in room temperature water and gradually heat the water, the frog will sit there and slowly cook to death.  It is used to show how people can be slowly influenced to do things they would normally reject.  For an example, think about a current television show.  The odds are that in the early 50's it would have been removed for the screen as being obscene.  Now it is accepted without a thought. 

My problem is that I tend to think everyone else is the frog and I am above such blindness.  I thought I was holding to high standards.  I recognized that students were less academic and motivated but thought I was holding the line.  Then this year I felt the heat.  I suddenly noticed  what a student was able to do who applied themselves.  I realized that I had been getting used to the declining academic skills of the students I serve.  I had slowly been accepting a lower level of performance.  Work that originally took one day was now taking two or three.

All the time I thought I was the water, or the heat, and all the time I was the frog.

And I am surrounded by frogs.

I work in a district of frogs.

I am not happy with that.  Sometimes the hardest revelations to deal with are about yourself.

homo unius libri