Musical Chairs

Some teachers have a way of teaching that their students are unaware of being taught. Yet, they've learned something greater than that which can be instructed. It seems like every generation of modern day school kids gripe about how irrelevant the curriculum at school is to the real world, how ineffectual lessons are in school at preparing them for adult life. I also said this.  Specifically for me algebra was a bug in my super computer, a glitch that although complex theories fascinate me,I am still not able to fix or figure out the purpose of or justify to my own children the necessity of. Like Carl Jung expressed, I also cannot fathom what letters have to do with representing numbers, you don't use numbers in the crossword puzzle, and only lately (of L8) has textese become acceptable-ish. This is only grammatically acceptable in order to relieve the (increased) pressure off of our magical evolutionary thumbs and to prevent, heaven forbid, the atrophy our evolutionary gold medal emblems.
Teachers stick to routines. This is boring. Perhaps because our lives are always changing, always moving. This is why we seek comfort in consistency and desire predictability. Which, like the doppler radar, can be a good thing, but also can be wrong or *subject to change, so we probably shouldn't put all a of our a's in our x boxes, I mean eggs in the basket, or was it all the chickens in one coup? See how confusing things get when you try to use algebra? Getting back on track about routines. We like the same foods over and over, we watch the same shows, leave the house in the morning at the same time, park in the same spots, sleep on the same side of the bed (or in the middle-lucky!), and usually sit in the same spots.  It's just true (Sheldon). It is like when you're a child and you follow footprints, trails, mysterious paths laid before. Granted many of us do stray off the (beaten) path.
Then it occurred to me suddenly. Switching seats in class was the most valuable lesson I learned.  It seemed arduous, annoying, and plain meddlesome at the time, as though the teacher were merely asserting authority, disruptive-  an explanation is never given for this consistent everlasting teaching ritual.  It is no longer needed, I just learned the lesson.
Now, if I could only see the alchemy in algebra or postul8 what it is 4...



Image By Royal Air Force official photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.