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[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:
  "To get a
> good job, get a good education."   The country seems to have 
> swallowed it.

I'd almost agree with that, except for the fact that I know several
people who are making over the 200K mark with only a high school
education.  Ron only went to college for a semester, so he falls into
the high school only category, too.  While we aren't wealthy by any
stretch of the imagination, he does make as much as a college grad.
Generally, however, I do believe that you can go farther if you have
some initials after your name.  What it implies is not so much that you
have an education, but to me, and to employers as well, it implies that
you had the fortitude and drive to stick it out for 4 years because at
some point in your life, you wanted "more".  That's not necessarily a
good thing, IMO, but it is the way people think.

 Now of days you can hardly get anyone to talk about
> education without it being tied to career.  This is unfortunate.

I agree on that, James.  My grandfather was one of the smartest, most
educated men I have ever been acquainted with and he had only a 3rd
grade 'formal' education.  He was self taught, and at the end of his
career, was over all the Woolworth stores in the East.  He wasn't
schooled, he was educated, incorporating all of life experiences into
knowledge, and I think that is the ideal that you would probably agree
upon when we are talking about unschooling.


 And
> it is definately not the focus of this clan.  We need some money, not
>  much, but some.  As the children establish themselves independently,
>  they will need money too.  We work for that without selling out
> souls to it.  That is, career is not life, it is not who they are.
> We have actively nipped in the bud the old bit about "What do you
> want to be when you grow up..."   Be?  They are now what they will
> be, themselves.  What they do for money is NOT what they are,
> although that notion serves the industrial/government/consumerist
> paradigm and is promoted by government schooling.

Okay, I see that and I can agree with that.  However, some people have a
need for more.  TJ has a love of learning, too.  One day, he will
probably inherit this place, but in the meantime, he would like a place
of his own.  If we did not have land to bequeath, he would be forced to
buy land to homestead.  In this day and age, with rising costs, he would
need money just to get a start.  But TJ, while he would be happy
homesteading, is also the type who would need additional intellectual
stimulation, like which would come from a career off the homestead, and
in his case, it would be nuclear engineering.  When it comes to
experimental physics, stuff like that is hard to find on the old
homestead.  He would work, but to him, it would be fun, and he wouldn't
be selling his soul, as you say.  He would be earning enough to run his
homestead off grid the way he wants and have enough money to be able to
allow his kids to play ball, take music lessons, go to Disney World or
WHATEVER. (By the way, Rob...give us a DW report...welcome back and I
missed you!)  I know in your opinion that would still be selling his
soul, but I think some people need careers as much as some people need
animals or gardening to be truly happy.
Without a formal education, Navy or otherwise, he could never live his
dream of becoming an engineer and raising his family on a homestead.  If
he waited to homestead until after we die, I think he would feel like a
failure in that he couldn't do it without us leaving him the land, do
you know what I mean?  He's independent enough to want to do it himself.
 A lot of folks are that way, too.  You take the talent that the gods
bestowed upon you and you help others doing it.  That talent may or may
not require an education in order to fully develop, but for some people,
math/science/engineering etc. is FUN and is what they want to do, just
like some people enjoy a good mystery book.

> So you see (may see) that the notion that one needs to probe deeply 
> into each artificially partitioned branch of math on the outside 
> chance that they may need that particular type of math described in 
> those particular terms and the ability to communicate that math in 
> the agreed parlance because of some future possible maybe career 
> choice is a most foolish waste of resources.

I suppose it would be foolish for some, but not for all.  We'll have to
agree to disagree.


> Again the career thing.  Having creditials and having worked as a 
> speech therapist, I'm all to familiar with audiology.  Here's the 
> impression the formal education left with me.  Sound waves are 
> sinusoidal.  The compression and rarefaction of air is the function 
> of the sine of the angle within the cycle.  Do you know that in a 
> class of some 20 graduating audiologists and speech patholotists, 
> every one of them (except me, of course) thought that the schematic 
> of the wavy line was what a sound wave looked like.  They thought 
> sound was traveling through the air as little squiggles that looked 
> like that.

Well, that's common.  A long time ago that got simplified and put into
their heads and they never grew a better understanding.  But James, not
everyone has your intelligence.  Just out of curiosity, how did YOU come
to be aware of the truth of matter?


 Yesterday on the launch ride the nine year old observed
> that when waves of the wake encountered the flotsam on the water, the
>  flotsam didn't actually move.  She concluded that the water wasn't 
> moving either but rather undulating in a regular and predictable 
> pattern.  She had grasped the concept of sinusoidal wave motion, 
> although she didn't use those terms ...... yet.  Now which, my nine 
> year old or the audiology graduates, best understands spherical trig?
I do understand what you are saying about labels and communication.  I
never really meant to imply that your kids aren't up to snuff, but
eventually, they will have to label their knowledge just like everyone
else does.  Also, just because your kid correctly analyzed wave motion
in a theoretical sense doesn't mean that she will be able to solve
complex equations.  With your genetics, I am sure she will one day,
maybe sooner than anyone imagines!
I guess I am relating this to my own knowledge of nuclear powered
submarines.  I can tell you the short version of how it works...hot
rocks make steam that makes the boat go. ;)  I understand the process in
theory, but I couldn't operate one or build one.  Without formal
education, I couldn't SAFELY be an nuclear operator.  I can punch
buttons, I can understand that this valve controls this pressure, but
when it comes right down to it, I'd need a hell of a lot more than that
to work as an engineer, because running a boat and being responsible for
problem solving on a boat requires a bit more than an understanding of
theory.


> > Ask him a question for me...I have been wanting to know what the 
> > Vikings/Norsemen used for navigation.  Obviously, they used the 
> > stars, but that is rather general information.  Did they use sand 
> > clocks?
>
> He says they were coast huggers.  They mainly navigated by following 
> ocean currents as if they were rivers, by monitoring the water 
> temperature and bits of vegetation floating on it.  That's why, says 
> he, that they didn't take off diagonally across the Atlantic but 
> rather explored the European coasts and the North Atlantic where they
>  had predictable currents to follow.

Tell him thanks.

Wish I could finish this conversation, but have a lot going on here, and
just don't have time.  Sorry.

Bev
--
BevanRon of EarthNSky Farm   NW Georgia USDA Zone 7
34.498N 85.076W    Bev is Earth, Ron is Sky