March 18, 2005

• A Twofer –

  First:

  WORDS

  words, words, words….

  I could probably let it pass, but where’s the fun in that? 
  To

  get

  the maximum satisfaction out of this bloggy thing before the

  government

  curtails my freedom of speech, I must gainsay the claims made by one

  of

  my commentors in defense of “school”.

  But

  school is great too.  The main difference, as I see it, is
  that school

  is way more structured.  They teach you things that you may
  not want to

  know, or be interested in, but still need to fully understand more

  complicated concepts.  So when it comes up, you have a basic
  knowledge

  without having to look everything up. 

  Posted 3/18/2005
  at 7:51 AM by missbehaves

  I’m assuming she

  referred

  to public elementary education because her argument about “basic

  knowledge” does not seem to

  apply to college or university, nor entirely to secondary

  school.  However, on further reflection, there’s no way that

  elementary school could teach even a gifted student enough “basic

  knowledge” so that he wouldn’t have to learn more specialized terms
  and

  concepts as he explored various subjects.  Even one or two

  university courses on a science won’t present everything a person
  might

  want to know about it.

  Although I gainsay her statement as a whole, I cannot dispute that it

  might be true for some
  people.  There are broad individual

  differences in learning styles.  Perhaps the writer is
  speaking as

  one who needs structure and needs to be force-fed
  information. 

  Where she went astray was in using the word “you” in addressing that

  comment to me. 

  There has never been anything I did not want to

  know.  I want it all.  I’m interested in everything,
  but at

  any given time I’m focused on some things more than on others, and

  those areas of focus are not determined by what someone else wants me

  to learn.

  As a small child, when I asked Spirit what my purpose in life is, the

  Voice Within told me it is to learn as much as I can.  I have
  not

  pursued that goal to perfection.  I have occasionally slacked

  off.  But I did something when I was fourteen years old that I
  do

  not doubt led me to broader and deeper knowledge than I would have

  gained otherwise:  I dropped out of high school. 
  School had

  been slowing me down.  The lock-step learning promoted in
  schools

  kept presenting me with things I already knew, while monopolizing my
  time and preventing me from

  exploring beyond those bounds.

  It would have been pointless, back then, to teach me a lot of technical
  jargon in all

  the sciences.  Some of it would have been forgotten through
  disuse

  before I’d found a need for it and integrated it into my conceptual

  framework.  In truth, even after I’d gotten my GED and
  enrolled in

  college, I found far too much repetition and too little depth in the

  courses I was allowed to take.  There is that foolish matter
  of

  “prerequisites”:  courses one must have taken before one can
  take the

  course one wants.  Libraries and search engines do not
  practice

  such foolishness, and they both provide dictionaries so that I may
  fill

  in the jargon gaps.

  Learning my way, at my own speed in the directions I choose, has
  always

  benefited me.  I suppose missbehaves doesn’t know this because
  she

  hasn’t read my memoirs, but when I took my GED test in my mid-twenties

  after a decade out of school, the test proctor said he was sorry he
  was

  only authorized to give me credit for twelve years of
  education. 

  My scores indicated the equivalency of twenty years — something on
  the

  order of a double doctorate.  I know beyond question that I’d
  not

  have learned so much in school in that time.

  I have, by the way, heard that argument for school before.  It
  is

  a specious, spurious after-the-fact rationization for the existence of

  a basically flawed and fundamentally misguided institution that has

  outlived its usefulness.  Our education system was intended
  to

  produce a literate and numerate work force for the mills and factories

  of the Industrial Revolution.  This week on public radio’s

  TechNation

  program Moira Gunn interviewed Henry Jenkins, Director of the

  Comparative Media Studies program at MIT, author of Rethinking
  Media Change and Democracy
  and New Media.  In that
  interview,

  where he talked about how video games can revolutionize education, he

  demonstrated merely by his existence that there are some good minds
  and

  progressive ideas

  in academia, but his whole premise focused on the need for radical

  change there.

  ---

  …and then –
  

  Iditarod
  Update

  In

  the latest standings, 39 mushers had gotten into Nome. 
  Harmony

  Barron made it in the money ($2,193.33), in twenty-ninth place, just

  ahead of her husband Jason who wins $1,880 (pictured here loving on

  some of his dogs with the same lips he presumably uses to kiss his

  wife).  Harmony’s father-in-law, John Barron, came in at 31st

  place, getting a share of the “losers’ purse” that will be more than

  $1,200.  The final amount won’t be known until the last
  finisher

  picks up the red lantern in Safety and carries it to Nome.

  Jessie Royer, in eighth place, was the first woman into Nome this
  year.  Her prize is $35,511.11.

  Dee Dee Jonrowe was tenth, Aliy Zirkle eleventh.  Jessica
  Hendricks came in at fifteenth and Melanie Gould at 23rd.  Diana
  Moroney at 27th place and Trine Lyrek at 37th round out the women who
  have finished thus far.  It is Trine’s first Iditarod finish, and
  she’s the top female rookie this year.

  The top rookie among the men was Bjornar Andersen in fourth place.

  In Nome Mitch Seavey, who finished third, was asked what had
  contributed to his speed this year.  He said it was his son,
  Tyrell, who finished in sixteenth.  Mitch said that at every
  checkpoint in the latter part of the race, they’d tell him that Tyrell
  was coming up in the standings and,”I couldn’t let that punk beat me.”

  This year’s trail was unusually rough, especially on the
  back-of-the-pack who had to mush through soft slushy snow that had been
  churned up by the teams ahead of them.  There were a record number
  of scratches (voluntary withdrawals from the race), but few of the
  physical injuries that have been common in other years.  Another
  difference I noticed was in the mood of many of the mushers.  I
  heard less of the upbeat humor that I’m accustomed to in the interviews
  from checkpoints.  Even before the race started, many of the top
  mushers were expressing disgust and dismay at seeing the serious
  competition eclipsed by the gee-whiz hype surrounding a neurotic rookie
  who proved in the end to not even make it to the end.

  It isn’t over yet.  There are still 23 teams on the trail, all of
  them hurrying along the Bering Sea coast between Shaktoolik and
  Nome.  Shane Goosen currently has last position, but he’s had it
  before and managed to pass a few others, so the Red Lantern Award is
  not yet decided.

  ---

  On second thought,
  I’ll make it a threefer.

  ANWR

  The sneaky Republican majority in United States Senate slipped approval
  of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into a budget
  bill because they knew they didn’t have the requisite margin of votes
  to pass it the right way.

  I heard our idiotic Governor Murky trying to rationalize it by talking
  about paying money to the “bad guys” for Arabian Gulf oil.  Never
  mind that if all Americans would simply inflate their tires properly
  we’d save as much gasoline as there is under ANWR.  Never mind
  hydrogen fuel cells, electric cars and hybrid vehicles.  Never
  mind.  My home state (or at least its administration and
  congressional delegation) is the property of the oil companies, and
  everything they say is said in the interest of increasing their profits.

  I’m going to stop right here.  I’m too pissed off to be entirely coherent about this.

   

  • 5:45 pm
  • 10 Comments