Termyn8or
Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
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This is spawned by another thread, rather than hijack I bring it on here. There are, or at least were different ways to get educated. Now it is all via a school, but it wasn't always that way, back when this country worked.
Me, I am almost totally self educated. It shows because I am aware of some of my shortcomings, but no education is complete, if it were I don't think we would be in this mess now. The wrong people are in power and as much as we may curse those in power who sell us out, if they were smart they would not do so. They literally bite the hand that feeds them, and this was described in an article I read decades ago. The old ones saw the signs and no matter what anyone says, the old ones were correct.
So how do you get an education. Let's start with me. I was taught the basics of reading about the time I learned to walk. It was well before kindergarden and I was able to read before even starting. Possibly by the selection of reading materials presented to me my interest was captured. I read everything I could get my hands on, even the phone book according to my Mother. Everthing, dictionaries, encyclopedias, ANYTHING. I got in trouble at school for studying electronics in English class. I was completely unconcerned with what they wanted me to learn. My curiousity drove me. Exactly how this happened I don't know.
Later, not to blow my own horn here, I became one of the very best in my field. After that I learned how to spell. It's amazing that when one reads, one does not pick upon proper grammar and spelling until later, when they are interested. The evidence is ubiquitous. Well read people often misspell words and or interpolate homonyms, even among the most educated. In the last decade or so I have tried to correct that deficiency in myself, and to explain all I can figure out is that I wanted to be able to express myself effectively. I did go to school until I found a way to get away with cutting. They would not teach me what I wanted to know and that was enough to make me think that it was a worthless waste of my time, with a few exceptions. But that is not the point.
Monetarily I owe what education I did get in school to the tax dollars spent, which my Parents paid. But more fundamentally to their actions in my early life. I am a dropout, but I have had some serious earning power. While that is waning due to changes outside of my control, it still stands. My Father was a dropout and he excelled at his trade. I mean axcelled like people can't concieve now. Quit the job, walk in two weeks later and just write your name on a time card, literally. He and a few cohorts "went around the city about three times". they were among the best. They did things that blew even my mind.
My Mother was educated at a parochial school. she graduated. When they divorced she had a bunch of crap jobs. Guys named Howard treating her like dirt, one of them I almost killed. Later I had many talks with her. She had had enough, and the olman and my strategy she then excelled in business. Some of the things I told her, having been in business were that the only thing you can do for a company is to make or save them money. Everyone is in business to make money. There is no other goal. This hardened her and she became head of the department and if she weren't so damn old she would still work there. They treated her very well and as retirement loomed they really started throwing her some money. Maybe I paid back, just a bit. Who knows ?
Now let's take another case. Wolf Man. Previously known s Uncle Whiskers when I was a kid. This guy doesn't know what a razor is. Well he worked for the steel mill. He was no Grandfathered in, he was Fathered in. He had a tough life, and enjoyed every minute of it. He used to smash so many of the olman's cars that the city, a literal hole in the wall town that probably didn't even have a sherriff got on his case for having too many wrecked cars in the yard, which IIRC was about 40 ACRES. The olman made a shiload of money and just bought another car every time. But it came time for the boy to work. Time for him to buy his own goddamned cars ! So he got the kid a job. Well this was all in the 1950s, but the kid did well. By the 1990s when the anti-smoking bitches came around they were told to STFU. He slept at work but was on call. His thing was material handling and when the load was ready it was time for him to work.
He got up and did his job well. His crew NEVER missed an incentive. They had the best safety rating of all at that mill. No accidents for years. He averaged $72,000 a year from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s. Now get this - he can't read, and he used to drink a fifth of rum every day. (his olady was butt ugly)
Next. A highschool dropout has to get a GED to get into an apprenticeship at a mason's union. He excels at it. A druggie, and I know because I was a druggie with him. We had money so we didn't give a fuck. He worked on Jacob's field, he worked with an archeologist(sp), he did a few oither things, like build a small stadium in a suburb for their varsity events. He can't spell the word estimate.
Next. A son is born to a friend. He goes to a parochial school and gets a free ride through St. Ignatius, which is a very good school despite being parochial. While there he gets about a 3.6 something GPA, which we are told is bettetr than a 4.0 ANYWHERE almost. He applied to 12 colleges and he was one of the few to be accepted to ALL of them. And I don't mean community colleges. He CHOSE UWM, and took a double major there. After a time he had to drop genetics because the load was just too much. He had a job immediately upon graduation., Interesting to note that his younger sister was as academically adept as he, but got no free ride, and this free ride DID NOT COME FROM THE GOVERNMENT in any way shape or form. The grants he recieved were from alumni of ST. Ignatius, and he intends now to join that crowd and likewise sponsor other somewhat underpriveledged kids such as he was, back them. He intends to pay forward. But without those alumni, he would have never had that opportunity. Of course withiout the academic excellence he would be in a pickup truck trying to be a contractor. His job now is WAAAAAY better than that.
Then we have the case of Lewin A.R.W. Edwards. He is an Austrailian but who knows where he is right now. Put that name into a search engine and get his resume. He quit college at sixteen to work. College ? In the US we are what, sophomores in HS at sixteen ? Come on.
We are at a serious disadvantage here, our educational system is all fubared. Who is responsible for that ? Not me. In fact I was rarely impacted by it. They "busted" me in English class because I wasn't taking notes, I was drawing schematics. They called Mom in, I was working out configurations of basic electronic circuits with transistors, diodes and resistors. OOOOOOhhhh, when my Mother got me home, absolutely NOTHING happened. She allowed me to persue what interested me.
You don't set a curriculum for my kid. Period.
So just who do you owe ? In another thread I stated that I could and would easily refuse to train someone to do my job. Fukum. Not the person but the company. Sure I'll train them if I so choose, but I will also tell them what they're worth, and being younger and more ambitious, with any luck they will squeeze the balls off that company more than any old coot like me ever could.
And one of you school taughten people please answer my question. I know a bit about thermodynamics but it was not my thing. Do I have to learn it to get my answer about the fresnel lens or what ? (energy gurus)
My people share information, and I have a website to prove it. I know what I don't know. Asking google or wiki won't work.
I know this. I know my limitations. Do you ?
T^T
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Who do you owe for your education ? - 
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