I have a brother who’s retired now, but he spent his career teaching recreation technology, whatever that is, at a community college in the next province over. Sometime mid-career, there was a faculty strike. A couple days into the strike he was heading to his office just to retrieve a book or something when a reporter stopped him and asked for a comment on the strike. My brother replied with whatever banality came first to mind, and an hour later the news segment opened with “Strike spokesman Dave Viminitz …”
It’s true what they say. Truly great men do not seek greatness; greatness is thrust upon them.
A few days ago I posted a short entry entitled “Decolonizing the Classroom”. Of the hundreds of insightful – dare I say brilliant? – things I’ve had to say on this blog over the past four years, I thought this one was borderline banal. And yet, to my bafflement, it got more visitors and views than the Sermon on the Mount. All I can say is, WTF!
Let me make this as clear as I can. I am not an expert on the indigenization of education. I know it’s an issue. And I think it should be an issue. But it’s not my issue. I was just whistleblowing on a particularly egregious example of Administration-Speak stupidity. But I didn’t mean it to launch a crusade.
But now that it has launched a crusade, I feel like I’m in a Monty Python movie, akin to Life of Brian. All eyes and ears are on me. What will O Saged One say next? It’s not that I resent the notoriety. It’s just that, well, why couldn’t it be about my reprehensible views on terrorism or trans-activism or Greta Thunberg or the Second Amendment or pedophilia? If I’m going to get death threats – and let’s face it, what blogger wouldn’t welcome a few as proof that he’s finally arrived? – why does it have to be for being a dog-whistling white supremacist? Hell, by some accounts I’m not even white!
But now that I have the mantle, I suppose I might as well run with it. Now I just need to decide whether, in “going forward”, I should be “walking it back” or “doubling down”. I’m still learning this new Media-Speak, so a little guidance would be much appreciated.
Categories: Humour, Why My Colleagues Are Idiots
Paulosophical Vimplications 
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