from blog.beliefnet.com

A recent .news story (which, honestly, I heard from a secondary source and haven’t yet found the primary, yet . .. ) talks about the budget crisis in New York State.  Recently a Corrections Officer came up with a potential way to save a large amount of money.

Replace prisoners’ hot dog and hamburger rolls with sliced bread. (I don’t know if it’s white bread or whole wheat!:)  In any event, this apparent switch will save the state of New York over $3,000,000 per year!  Unbelievable.

I am looking forward to heading to the supermarket to verify the cost-savings and how many hot dogs and hamburgers we are talking about . . .

from plimoth.org

However, this gets me to thinking about teaching, learning, and creativity.  We certainly have a problem finding/problem solving situation here.  But I think what I see that is important is that it is situated.  If the person wasn’t working in the prison environment, this would have probably been a non-existent thought.  It was necessary and critical that this individual had practical, real experience with the environment so he developed an expertise to recognize that there was a potential money-saving option.

I think there is a lot here that I am not yet seeing, but wanted to be sure to document this idea for further thought and analysis.