to wonder or not to wonder

I think it is safe to say that Mr. Schick blew my mind today. And pretty much everyone else in the entire class too. He used the Socratic method. He questioned things that affect our everyday life. Why is the time different around the world? What is the point of a time zone? If it was, for example, 9 o clock everywhere, we would technically all be in the same day. Even if 9 am in the morning for one place might be in the middle of the night for somewhere completely different, same. Also, why is there daylight savings time? If you think about it, when you set your clock back, you are reliving that hour of your life. Or when we go one hour ahead, you technically miss an hour of your life that you never get back.

Another topic brought up by Mr. Schick was why is there 24 hours in a day? 60 minutes in an hour? 60 seconds in a minute? We could do it by hundreds, easier to calculate. My response, at first, was that why would we bother changing the time references we have now? They work fine, can time really become better or more efficient? If so, then that would be great! Give me 100 hours in a day instead of 24, I’m fine with that. Whatever you want to call it, it is still the same amount of time. The same amount of time it takes for earth to spin one whole rotation. Even if a group of people did want to change the time of day around the whole world to a 24 hr clock or we want to change the units of time measure… What is to say that they could get all 7.4 billion people in this world to agree on one topic. We simply can’t with anything else. Whatever clock time that would be decided on would be the clock that some time zone has had for centuries. There is no way that everyone in this world would agree to follow the way that another place has been doing something. Even if the time change would be significantly being better for the good of the world, some people still wouldn’t care. After reflecting on the class discussion, my opinion changed. Now, I think if something like this happened, I would agree to switch times if there was a beneficial effect on the world by me doing that. I would now say that it isn’t pointless to question normal things, even if they seem to work fine because it could always be more efficient or improve.

During this class period, Mr. Schick made me question everything I was saying. At points I would be confused and be like “Well why do we have to question the time if it works just fine now” and he answered the way that Socrates would… “The unquestioned life is a life not worth living.” I didn’t understand the meaning of that quote at first, but now I understand. How could you live following rules or following set things such as times without questioning if there is a better way? Wouldn’t you want to be using the best method possible? That is why Mr. Schick has these questioning debate-ish things in class. It makes you think in a way you aren’t used to.