Ride or Die

I covered a Drivers Ed class this morning, but there was a student-teacher so I didn't have to do anything but sit there (legally there has to be a licensed teacher in the room).

I ate my snacks and read the new issue of The Atlantic.

Andrew Ferguson's article "Can This Marriage be Saved? Applying the Techniques of Couples Counseling to Bring Reds and Blues Back Together Again" made me think about how there are two sides to every coin.

Drivers Ed class offers really specific and useful information about how to obtain a driver's license. Keep both hands on the steering wheel. Bring six points of ID to the road test. Do NOT laminate your permit!

Drivers Ed class assumes you want to drive a car. It assumes you want to participate in this insane fossil-fuel guzzling pedestrian killing traffic inducing asthma creating smog cycle that we have created by coupling our souls with the automobile.

It didn't have to be this way.

Perhaps there should be some discussion and debate about this during Drivers Ed class. Why save the controversy for Environmental Science? There's certainly enough time to produce well-informed possible drivers and bring up the possibility of NOT driving. The course is a part of Health class, and there are few things less healthy for all parties involved than driving a car. They advise the kids not to do drugs, not to have unprotected sex, and not to do things generally bad for your body and mind, but when it comes to cars, we put on the blinders.

3 comments:

zman said...

You should not wear blinders when you drive a car. Your student teaching is doing a bad job if he puts blinders in the kids.

zman said...

Autocorrect is awesome. It’s like I’m wearing blinders.

Dave said...

yeah-- that's a mixed metaphor. doesn't make a lot of sense, i think i got horses and cars combined. whatever! on to the next post . . .

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