Contemplations on Mr. B's Room

One of the fun things about being a substitute teacher is that I get to 'test drive' a lot of different classrooms. I get to see how other teachers have their rooms organized and what kinds of things they do with the space—decorations on the walls and so on. I was in a room yesterday where the teacher had a number of posters, pictures, and bumper stickers posted, many of which I found thought-provoking. Here's a sampler.
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"Never let school interfere with your education"." - Mark Twain

Better advice for teachers than for students, perhaps—especially if you add "...or the education of your students." to the end.
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Please do not annoy, torment, pester, plague, molest, worry, badger, harry, harass, heckle, persecute, irk, bullyrag, vex, disquiet, grate, beset, bother, tease, nettle, tantalize, or ruffle the teacher.

Yeah, this one's going right over my desk when I get one.
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"If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them." -George Orwell

Very true, especially the last part. I have the Hollywood Left and the Christian Right specifically in mind....
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"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." -Jimi Hendrix

Pretty smart for a guitar player.
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[next to a picture of President Bush] 9/11, WMD, NOLA - Three Strikes You're Out!

It's hard to argue the WMDs, and I can even see the New Orleans argument—even though I personally think local leaders should have been A LOT more prepared for Hurricane Katrina. But to lay the entire blame for the World Trade Center attacks on the current administration is a big stretch, in my mind—pure partisan politics. It's hard to imagine that "President Gore" would have taken that kind of heat for something that happened eight months into his administration. Almost as hard as it is to imagine Dubya with an Oscar.
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Science Goals For A Lifetime:

Using all of your senses, including your feelings, observe, and not just look at, the world around you.
(Observation is the foundation of science.)

Look for and understand connections in the world.
(Everything is interconnected and influenced by everything else.)

Remember how you connect with the world.
(Personal understanding is the basis for global understanding.)

Record, contemplate, and share understandings and feelings.
(Sharing is an essential human trait.)

I think it's interesting that the nameless author(s) chose to include feelings as part of this mission statement. Most people in science encourage, and even require, a strictly dispassionate approach to science. This makes me think of something my Thermodynamics professor told us, something his own father had said:
"If science or whatever else you have chosen to do is just an eight-hour day and then on to other things, you're probably not going to change the world." -Henry Eyring
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The Paradox of Our Age

We have bigger homes and smaller families;
More convenience but less time.
We have degrees but less sense;
More knowledge but less judgment;
More experts but more problems;
More medicine but less healthiness.
We have been all the way to the moon and back,
But we have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbour.
We built more computers to hold more information and produce more copies than ever,
But have less communication.
We have become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are times of fast foods, and slow digestion;
Tall man and short character;
Steep profits and shallow relationships.
It is time when there is much in the window,
And nothing in the room.

-His Holiness, the XIVth Dalai Lama

This is one of the most profound things I've read in quite a while. How did we allow ourselves to become so obsessed with things and so disconnected from other people?
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Let education change you, then go and change the world.

There's plenty in the world that could stand to be changed. It starts with us.