23: These days are numbered, I can tell. #LifeWideLearning16

For your time it’s written out
Work means nothing by itself
Selection
Selection kills the old
Selection
Selection breathes on its own
On its own
These days are numbered
I can tell
So until the crash i’ll write it down, down
Selection
Selection kills the old
Selection
Selection breathes on its own
Sing while you can now
While you can
Sing while you can now
While you can
Sing while you can now
While you can
Sing while you can now
While you can
Selection
Selection
Selection kills the old
Selection
Selection breathes on its own
On its own

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to create things that last. I have wanted to be a part of something that outlives me. Jimmy Eat World was my favorite band in High School. They were a post-punk amalgamation of angst and sophomoric truth. And they were perfect for my formulation of what was possible.

For me, this song is about how “the new” gets in the way of “the good”. It is about not just playing the role you have been given, but finding a new way to sing, to create. This lesson has proved itself to be useful, again and again:

1. The educational fads of the last 20 years
2. The pendulum swing of reform
3. The EdTech tool of the minute

These are the selection processes that exist outside of the real world of teaching and learning. They exist outside of the practice of children becoming themselves within a classroom. The work being done “means nothing” to those who are simply willing to select the next silver bullet.

The song may be sparse and is not an obviously 90s version of anything. Rather, I keep on coming back to it because it is timeless, both in sentiment and in scope. Because it is the lesson I must learn and relearn, I sing it out loud whenever I need to. It occupies the part of me that is still searching for something to sing about that will outlive this last “selection.”