In my last post, I wrote about the Ben Franklin Moral Virtue Matrix – a series of charts that Benjamin Franklin designed to turn himself into a virtuous individual. In light of all the man accomplished (after all, he IS the subject of countless rap songs) I figured this was one lofty self-improvement project worth blatantly stealing. So, in the middle of this year, I started putting myself through the Matrix. I vowed to become a Better Man through pure, virtuous living.

Of course, I had misgivings – perhaps I took all my Sunday School classes to heart, but I always thought of myself as highly prone to sin, in spite of my hyper-developed capacity for Christian guilt. I could also recall the indignity of the last time I used a chart to monitor my progress – in Ms. Minter’s grade four class. Ms. Minter had a disdainful, Nurse-Ratchet-like countenance. She looked upon my classmates and me less as young minds for the molding than as a bunch of future violent offenders whose unhealthy impulses required behavioural modification. Ms. Minter was a firm believer in shame-based learning, a daring initiative whose central focus and principal educational weapon was the ‘star chart.’ Whenever my classmates or me answered a question correctly in class, we’d be rewarded with a star, placed on a chart on the classroom wall. It’s a common practice in many classrooms, but in Frau Minter’s re-education camp, with its special emphasis on targeted yelling and surreptitious corporal punishment, the chart took on ominous overtones. For me, it was a kind of ironic humiliation – whenever she asked me a question in class, I would freeze – I was so overwhelmed by panic over having my starless failures chronicled so publicly that I simply couldn’t summon the action needed to acquire even one. I’d like to think Ms. Minter would be proud to see that I’ve come so far as to now endure such humiliation voluntarily.

Pages: 1 2 3