Termyn8or
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Joined: 11/12/2005
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Funny MM, et alii, that a discussion about minimum wage has progresswed into education, and it seems more particularly primary education. It all seemed so easy didn't it ?
Remember though what Chris Rock said "When Johnnie can't read it's mamas fault". Though I could read quite proficiently before entering kindergarden, I knew nothing of composing and using grammar properly. I simply was not interested. In grade school they didn't like the fact that I ignored the classroom to persue my own intersts, and even my Mother will tell you I got "busted" for drawing schematics in English class. But now I make more that they, so who are thay to say. I was always a bit maladjusted at school, and even in counselling they asked if I respected my my teachers, to which I replied "Everyone deserves some respect, even a newborn baby". At age about ten I had coyly said something they totally missed, which was that they hadn't earned any respect beyond that. I was in a family that was argumentative, and I would say quite intelligent, but not mean nor vindictive. I can tell if someone is lying (in person) almost before they actually do it.
They did not know who they were playing with. In kindergarden, the teacher said to count as high as I could. I responded "Are you sure ?". She said yes and when I got beyond 100 or so I was asked to quit. I had given her fair warning, I don't just have a bunch of numbers memorized, I know how the system works. I was worse than little Johnnie in that respect, in the same classroom she told me to make a letter A on the blackboard. I said "What kind, cursive or printed, capital or not ?", to which she replied anyway I could. So I "made" a capital print letter A, and she said it was backwards. I replied "It can't be backward it is symmetrical".
And if you think that is something, just imagine what happened by the time I was at a grade level where I was allowed to take electronics. I was also a math assistant for a time. Other parts of school turned me off. Highly regulated sports, I was used to wrestling with farm boys. They eventually let me go to a place called Cleveland Urban Learning Community. Unfortunately while there I ran into another pothead and had some really good shit. So good in fact that we both got thrown out. My choice was to go back to regular school or not. I chose to work. I persued the fields of study that I chose, and it was only later that I learned much about grammar and composition. Not quite to this day, but during my tenure at CM I have still had to call Mom and find out how to express this or that. One time I had to call to find out how to spell the word 'ecstasy', but that was a bit before CM. Although I had read the word numerous times, I just never paid it enough attention to remember how to spell it.
So I am against this rigidly structured mechanical education which is compulsory in these days. It produces little in the way of true competence or inventiveness. I see memorization as treated more important than problem solving abilities in most cases. Many may disagree with this part; I believe it is futile to teach an uninterested student history at any age. Memorize the states, in what war did some guy die ? All a bunch of shit to clog up the mind.
In regular highschool I fooled them. Yes I went to school, for like a half a day. I could cut with impunity. I learned the secret, just never ever, from day one, ever go go to homeroom ! Yes ideedy, that was the trick. I could attnd when I felt like it it and my absences were reported into the wild blue somewhere. I neve got a truant notice until we had to move, and a new school was involved. Somehow they caught me. To say the least, I was not there long. No matter what they did they could never control me. In HS before CULC, I actually had a student job in the AV dept. We would show the movies and stuff, handle the equipment used in the "educational" process and so forth. I learned skills, from repairing things to splicing films that had broken. I even got a paycheck from the school ! But I did what I wanted and went where I wanted.
It may sound wrong at first, but I believe that young students should be allowed to direct their own educational path. Do away with diplomas as we know them and seperate them into categories. This one is no good in math and that one is no good in this or that, and so forth. Courses could be offered to fill the voids, to 'round out' so to speak, a "full" diploma. By the time I was eighteen I was maing as much money as my Mother, and yes of course I come from a broken home. We were poor enough, I gave her half my takehome pay, which was a deal we made regarding my quitting school. Even at that, I always had money for gas, whatever I wanted. And yes I was driving before legal age. That is something which leaves me in a gray area, things were different then, you could get away with it. I could never agree to it in today's society, but back then we had alot more freedom. One time I got got stopped, and when we went to get my car out of impound I drove it home, still too young to legally drive ! But we all knew that they didn't know that.
Today things are different, much different. Well not that much, we did get sued for a bit over $353,000 because of my antics. We got a very good lawyer and took care of it. The olman said "I've been served more papers than this". My Parents made me pay the settlement, but after our lawyer got into it that was two grand in payments. I paid it off in a couple years. I was still wreckless, but maybe not as much. That is really one time I did hurt someone who did not hurt me or try to, and I confined my antics in the car to more remote locations. My craziest stunts I would pull alone, after I knew for sure it all worked, then people would almost piss their pants in my car, but they still got in. Yes we were an adventurous lot to sat the least, at least those who would get in.
Academically, I was losing interest in TV, even the shows I liked, I preferred to read. I always had a really good stereo too, that was a must. With all that money I had a laid out room, and one apt. we moved into it was seperated from the rest of the suite, so I had privacy. That is where I learned alot about drugs and all that, and we could JAM !
All in all, the point is that life taught me more than school. If school would've taught me I would probably be in really bad shape right now.
However now we live in a society where the Parents do not teach and are literally unable to afford these opportunities. Opportunities like figuring out how to fix your own car when you break down a long way from home, and nobody knows where you are and cellphones do not yet exist. That is education, in spades. I always had a spare set of points, and my car had two batteries in it, but that was to start it because the compression was so high. I wanted to be footloose and fancy free and I was. Take off Friday and head for the sticks, no show no call. Just show up Monday at work. Call ME on the carpet, wait a minute, I am not even on the clock here, I work on commision. Sorry I made more than your "top guy" last week, but you won't even pay me by the hour, let alone a salary, so you are out nothing, so what ? You want to talk about this all day or you want me to go get busy and work ?
Guess what the answer was. One time a boss said "You act like you are doing us a favor coming in to work" to which I replied "Ain't I ?". Momma didn't raise any fools here. I tried to be polite as possible, when I told my current boss that his people skills were not that good. A few times he copped an attitude and put customers off, but within minutes I had them practically eating out of my hand. I tried to tell him, but I defer to his judgement because it is his business. As long as I get my money I am less unhappy. Everything is fine.
Do they teach this in any school at any level ? Just what do they teach in school ? Conformance. Well Eli Whitney, Henry Ford, and alot of other people did not conform. To conform is to be the norm. We used to know already as Ross Perot said it "There is more money in computer chips than potato chips". We used to be a nation of individualists working together, now it seems we are conformists working apart.
And that is what I mean. What provided the springboard to the former greatness of this country was not socialist and not communist in nature. It was individualism. To play with a chemistry set instead of baseball, which I consider a total waste of time. After all isn't it called a pastime ? I could almost see football and got into it for a while, but grew tired of it.
Anyway, in a book I wrote, in a near utopian world I created from my own mind, this method was adopted. In that fictional world, everyone was educated to the best of their ability. If they lacked high intelligence, because of that, they would have to work harder physically to maintain a household but one person could do it, right now you can't unless you got one of those really sweet jobs it takes connections to get. In my manufactured world, leaders were chosen properly, and considered themselves servants of the people. They thought things out carefully, did what was best for the country and could 'show their work' so to speak. A bit different than today ya think ?
If you want to speak of education let's talk about universities. Alot of people don't know it but Harvard and Yale are second rate schools at best. Thinlk I am kidding ? Look into it. Look at the entry requirements. Look in the Humor section for the accounts of a travel agent who took a call from a US senator who wanted to take a bus to Hawaii. Beam me up Scotty, and they locked up the guy who used to say that. They disrespected him because he would wear cheasp suits ot congress. And he was framed, and I know how they did it.
This is our world, and it doesn't look like we are making too much progress taking it back. And you wonder why I am not afraid to leave it (Health and Safety : Another thyroid question). It isn't fair, I could go out in a blaze of glory, and plant a false flag and start alot of shit, why don't I ? I have a Mother who has forgiven me for more shit than any ten cows could produce, and I do not want to see her outlive her offspring. But even after she passes, do I want to leave my sister all alone ? Other than that I don't really care all that much. We are going to hell in a handbasket, and I bet even it was made in China. So I have to die last ? It's just not fair I tell you, it's just not fair.
CM people are among he best people. Have ideas sometimes, things like this. But when it comes to fixing this society, a strange silence seems to creep in. I know why, we don't have the answers. I pride myself on my problem soling ability, and I invented the term "omnidirectional thinking" and possibly the process itself. That is my job, and I can do it with sufficient information. But the woes of the the world, even with all of the information I doubt I could do it. Some things are unsolvable. Some things that have already been done, many before our time are not undoable. There are indeed unsolvable problems, and we are so deep, it does not even require a paradox, we have just gone too far, and time is unidirectional.
Someone prove me wrong here, I would consider it encouragement.
T
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RE: Minimium Wage Rant - 
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