Metaphors

I had an interesting staff meeting the other day. I would encourage all people, administrator, teacher, random guy giving a presentation to his board of directors on Thursday, to check your metaphors before you make them.

You may have noticed the picture. Well, this leads into my interesting staff meeting. My principal, and it really is very difficult for me to keep this anonymous because my goodness, made a reference to the staff thinking that she was making this brilliant metaphor. She told us that we were a lot like Sisyphus. Now, if you don't know who that is, here is a link to the story. http://www.mythweb.com/teachers/why/other/sisyphus.html Essentially, this guy, Sisyphus, was condemned for eternity to try to push a rock up a hill, and would never EVER be able to succeed. My principal, told the staff that we were Sisyphus. Eternally damned to roll a rock up a hill but never quite make it.

Now, I'm really not quite sure what she was trying to tell us, but she seemed so proud of her analogy. We just keep trying, I think was the basic message. What I don't think she got is that she was essentially telling us that we have chosen a profession that is eternally doomed to futility. To constantly try, but to never get where you needed to be. We push rocks for a living, and every single year, we just get a new set of rocks.

The only logical conclusion that any of my colleagues and I were able to come up with, and it wasn't a very happy one at that, is that we must also be doomed to working in Hades. Hooray for the Greeks!