Visionary

Do you ever get asked those impossible choice questions some people live for? You know, the ones like which one of your children you would save if you had to choose or if you would flip the switch that would keep a full train from plunging into a canyon but kill your only son who had wandered onto the track. Those impossible questions. Maybe people just like to see me squirm because I seem to get that type of conundrum presented to me all the time. Most of the questions have varied and morphed over time but one has remained constant: Would you rather lose your sight or lose your hearing? Of course, the real answer is neither, thank you, but the point of these dumb dilemmas is to force you to make a choice. So, for me, the answer has always been clear. If I couldn’t see--to read, to recognize loved ones, to move about independently--my life would be qualitatively fractured beyond repair. I would have to preserve my sight, but I say that realizing how much I would lose if I couldn’t hear. Singing and dancing as I know them would be gone. I couldn’t gauge the tone of sadness or joy in voices I love. And a speech teacher who can’t hear speeches…But that would still be my choice. Maybe Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle’s arctic protagonist in Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? would choose differently. Snow is snow is snow, after all.

http://www.amazon.com/Polar-Bear-What-Brown-Friends/dp/0805053883

http://www.teachingk-8.com/archives/celebrations_in_reading_and_writing/remembering_bill_martin_jr_by_maryann_manning.html

http://ericcarleblog.blogspot.com/