Nobelity

I will try to tone down the sarcasm that I normally aim towards our nation's leader for this post, because Obama did at least have the self-awareness to say he did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

I realize that not all winners can be Ghandis, MLKs, and Mother Teresas. There will have to be a few Elie Wiesels and Gorbachevs thrown into the mix. In all seriousness, if you look at a list of laureates, you see a collection of people who did things for the world. Even the more controversial figures have acted on a global scale. Take Henry Kissinger, for example. Controversial figure, to say the least, but he was working in Vietnam. Or Al Gore. The credibility of his facts is, well, fairly non-existent, but he shared the award with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and what happens to the environment matters to the whole world.

President Obama, as best I can tell, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for hope. It makes me feel better about the US education system from a global perspective. Even my slowest students realize that there is a difference between hope and peace. They are also starting to grasp the idea that rewards come after actions, not as motivation to do something.