I knew a teacher once.
I knew a teacher for ten or so years. She had a tough time with getting special ed kids on board with giving a damn about tests. It was hard, every year. Some teachers figured out ways around the issue. They’d put problem kids who didn’t like tests in special ed so they didn’t have to have as high a score and bonus, they’d be a special education issue. My friend taught that. So, she had a lot of kids with learning to learn issues. Sometimes it wasn’t even how smart they were..simply difficulties at home. Sad.
School sucks for learning the right things.
We often think the goal of education is to learn specific things. For me, the goal is always to learn how to learn something for myself. I often need help getting into it, breaking the ice with it. But I love learning enough lingo and formula to swing a cat in a subject with what I know too. School isn’t there to teach near as much as it is there for you to learn to like learning. It sucks at that, though.
I drove trucks for 12 years listening to college courses for 10 or so hours a day and learned a lot. I enjoyed it. Might do it again.
If you were raised like I was, learning at school became a nuisance.
I didn’t learn to love learning at school, unfortunately. I went to 33 schools growing up. It was very difficult for me to keep up with the different curriculums. 7th grade, which I was held back twice in, for example, was biology in Oklahoma, and Earth Science in Texas. One example, I went back and forth 3 or 4 times that year. Didn’t stand a chance.
It’s frustrating when you feel like you’re smart and you get held back because you moved a lot. I got tired of that feeling. Dropped out in the tenth grade. Got a GED. Joined the Navy. The Navy was actually better at teaching lots of things than school was. Guess when you wind up operating millions of dollars worth of equipment, they are motivated to teach you how to do it. School has grades. Navy has nukes.
It’s not so much how you learn it, but why.
Thinking for yourself is the goal, if I’m teaching you anything. I don’t need you to know my silly methods. But, I’d be happy if I was responsible for assisting in good decisions. Makes me happy now just thinking about it.
No one who gives you advice, including me, knows how you truly feel and everything you know. So my view is talking about how to think so you can figure it out is more important than step by step instructions for particular issues. Thinking for yourself isn’t popular. However, I’ve found it to be extremely useful.
Plus-selling comfort and learning, shouldn’t we all have that?
There’s all kinds of plus sells and gimmicks folks come up with to bypass having to think about people and consequences. Not just in music, they do this in politics, advertising, yada yada. If it sounds good, people will buy it. That’s what they want.
Thinking for yourself dissects these issues and gives you different solutions. Everything from pre-orders to streaming metrics, to bills Texas passed yesterday, to food advertising.. they will ALL tell you what you want to hear while they’re full of it.
The great good education can do.
To me this is “education’s” moment. If someone tells me about how good something is, I am looking at what they aren’t saying first. It helps me find questions for them or the internet. My father worked very hard with me trying to teach me to think for myself. That was the goal, no matter what I was learning. I love him for that and many other things. Thanks, dad.
The more you know, the less you believe the bullshit. It should be a priority for most everyone to know as much as possible, in my opinion. We contribute with what we learn, even if it’s just to our own lives. That’s still very worth it. Learning is rad.
Do you ever feel like a battery?
They make it hard. You don’t teach “the help” not to be help anymore if you’re concerned about profits and owning folks. They have a vested interest in everyone being idiots. It makes people much easier to fleece. Make them learn about religion or celebrities. If they learn about education, they are a threat.
A lot of us serve as batteries for billionaires, maybe most of us do. I wouldn’t look to the elite for answers, just smoke.
Ask questions!
I ask professors and teachers lots of questions. They don’t seem to mind, and I don’t worry about the source. Even if they’re wrong, and they could be, I’m informed of the current academic perspective. Helps a lot. I bother a friend of mine who is a PhD at NASA all the time for his brain. He’s very nice and partakes in wonderful conversations. Vital to me. I learn a lot.
The quest never ends with education. Can pick up from anywhere and jump right in. Remember, it’s not always about what you’re learning, it’s about learning to think for yourself. Take care.
Contact us.
Maybe you’d like a hand on tune somehow. Or possibly you’d like to write one together. Maybe you’d like to talk about anything I say here in the blog. I’m open to all of it. I check this email twice a day. [email protected]. Thanks.
Return to home.
Great video of a jam session with Steve Jordan and Bernie Worrell.
I enjoy these musicians a lot. I love the jam here with them. Nothing super fancy, just a jam. But they are amazing musicians. So just a jam for them has all kinds of little awesome things in it. Enjoy. I learn tons from these kinds of videos.