Do you suffer from the Lemming Condition?

Award-winning actor and author, Alan Arkin, tells a brilliant tale in his young adult novel, The Lemming Condition. The story is an allegory on conformity, as Bubber, a lemming, is faced with following his entire race to self-induced extinction.

Bubber struggles to decide if he should participate in what appears to be an insane death walk, only to constantly be told by family and friends that this is just the way things are.

I won't ruin the ending, but let's just say that Bubber isn't your garden variety conformist.


Several conversations with colleagues have me wondering if Arkin's lemmings could have just as easily been today's teachers -- legions of people who conform daily to the principles of traditional methods and administrative pressure to teach to the test.

Like Bubber, we are constantly told this is just the way things are.
Bubber was faced with extinction. One must wonder, are we next?