Fishing License

[Anne Wilson]

On Friday 12 May 2006 05:28, Tim wrote:
> Oh really?  Have you also spent around 15 years working in schools?  

16 years.
> I have.  

Thankfully, not in any school my family has used.

> I have practical experience from both sides of the fence that 
> it's a pointless exercise.  Can you remember everything that you were
> taught at school?  Do you use a fraction of it?
>
Remember details, no - but then I can't remember what I did at 10:00 
yesterday, either.  Using it?  Of course.  It colours absolutely everything I 
do.

> I did the highly academic subjects (English, Maths I & II [trig and
> algebra, I never remember which is which anymore, we didn't have
> calculus], Physics and Chemistry).  All of which were listed as
> prerequisites for my tertiary training, NONE of which were ever needed.
>
Without them I would have missed, for example, the last 25 years of enjoyable 
computer experience.  That's without mentioning the less important things <g> 
like family finance management, nutrition, healthcare, the science of 
cleaning, laundry etc.  Oh yes, and the running of a successful small 
business for 15 years.

> Yes, schools *should* teach you how to learn, but they invariably don't.

Your school?  Perhaps.  Certainly not ones I taught in.

> The dumbest arguments I hear are that schools *are* "practical"
> education institutions.  Those people that do have common sense, know
> how to figure things out, are creative, genuinely useful, etc., didn't
> learn that from school.  If anything, it dulls that out of most people.
>
"Dulls that out"?  I think not.  In many people it's simply not there.  
Remember the saying "Nothing so uncommon as common sense".  You don't seem to 
be showing much of it either.  You, and only you, are responsible for the way 
that you think and act.

>  But in contrast, many of the main stream school students who're
> supposedly top of their class seem to be as thick as two short planks.
>
Apples and pears.  True, many academically brilliant people seem to lack 
common sense, but I suspect they have the same size bucket of a brain as 
mine, and fill it with different stuff.

> When I ride, throw a ball, or some other intuitive physical skill, I can
> tell you that I don't use physics to figure out how to do it.  Physics
> might explain the processes, but it's certainly not needed to do so.
> The skills involved in such basic tasks don't require several years of
> training either, just some apppropriate time for the task.

No comment - neither physics nor intuition ever taught me to throw a ball.
>
> > School is about learning to think, not silos of knowledge.  I am
> > appalled that no one ever taught you that.
>
> It's not how schools work (they discourage thinking, they discourage
> individuality, they encourage obedience without question of any sort),
> hence my comments about it being a waste of time.

Again, I can't speak for your school.  The schools I have worked in discourage 
mindless disobedience while welcoming individuality.  Social responsibility 
is a concept needed there.

We all can only speak from our own experiences.  I consider it a sign of 
intelligence, though, to accept that the experience of others can be at least 
equally valid.

Anne
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