Just in case anyone out there in cyber interweb space is looking for a posting of my newest work I am at the library camera in hand without the camera adaptor cord to plug in to the computer. My apologies. I will post my work next week, if not tomorrow. I am hoping to get to town, if and when the car is fixed, which is in the shop today. Seems lately the thought for the day is, hurry up and wait. It can be rather stressful because well it can be tediously boring, waiting. I have been thinking about this increasingly the past month because I have found myself in this very stituation several times and it appears to be a re-occurring theme in my life. When I become aware of these predominating themes, I want to analyze and understand them so I am better equipped to know how to cope with them.
"Patience is a virtue" my boring grade nine school teacher use to mumble to herself, while we drove her over the edge, I'm sure as a result of our own boredom. It wasn't all her fault I'm certain.
Today I heard a compelling story on CBC Radio regarding
Albert Nerenberg the award winning Canadian film maker, who has made a film about the topic and study of boredom. Turns out boredom is a stressful thing. The heart rate actually increases though one would expect your heart rate to decrease, An extremely high percentage of students in our educational system are bored, which means they are also stressed. This comes as no surprise to me, being a school drop out myself and very bored by school when I was in elementary and secondary school. As a Youth Care Worker most of my working life I saw time and time again how bored students were is school. Creativity and individual thinking is not nurtured nor encouraged, and ceratinly God forbid there was no fun to be had in learning!
I was speaking with a young teacher yesterday who expressed her great frustration finding herself in the situation of not being able to find work in her profession, even as a substitute. She spoke of how she knew of retired teachers actually coming out of retirement returning to the classroom as substitute teachers. She is a single mum, with a child in school, who is also very bored, particularly with a retired returning substitute teacher, as the teacher exhibits no engaged energy, or enthusiasm for her job. This so called "teacher" is simply going through the motions, picking up a pay cheque, taking up space, in a position of employment that is greatly needed by a youthful, passionate young women, who is most deserving of the opportunity to really make a difference in these young lives. I thought, this retired teacher is an example of what is a big contributing piece of dead wood, that enables the boredom factor. I just don't understand the logic within an our educational system that allows for this to happen. School should never be boring, not full of dead wood, learning should and needs to be fun. School should not be full of stress. School should never be hell!
I also heard yesterday that a very high percentage of folks who suffer from mental illness, particularly depression far out ways any other disease at present, including heart disease and cancer. It is a well known fact the stress can alter the hormone cortisol, which contributes greatly to disease.
I believe we need to seriously consider this link between boredom, negative behaviours within schools, such as bullying, mental illness like depression, and the high incidence of teen suicide.
Not wanting to leave this post on a negative note, I hope you will not find this posting anything but boring.
Here's to Heaven! No more Hell!
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