Posted on 10/29/2016 5:56:18 AM PDT by detective
I had my own subscription to Popular Science back when it was a good magazine and Dad had Popular Mechanics which had better plans and projects. I also had a subscription to Flying Magazine from a very early age. It fostered my dreams.
I’m wondering what becomes of the sets of World Book when I pass away. It won’t matter to me, I’ll be dead. There are lots of things like that I wonder about but it won’t matter of course. We spend our whole lives collecting our treasures only for them to become a problem and junk for others. Better we had not collected them to begin with. So many things that are personal treasures from my Dad and Grandfather that will become just stuff to others. Things that were gotten at great cost and effort that are now obsolete.
Time to move on.
I remember when the World Book salesman came to visit one evening. So exciting.
Look THAT up in your Funk & Wagnells!
One of the biggest problems I had in school when doing areport on a subject was that I would start with our household encyclopedia. As I am flipping through, looking for the subject in question, something shiny would attract my attention, and I would spend an hour or two reading about things that had nothing whatsoever with what I was suppsedly working on.
The end result is that my head is crammed full of seemingly endless facts about things that have nothing to do with anything 'normal' people know.
They knew ...
Yeah. Like the thousands of dollars worth of fine china my parents collected in boxes in the other room. Nobody cares about fine china anymore.
It wasn’t a very hard sell to get my parents to buy them. We were both very literate and they knew it was something we needed. Not that they didn’t use it too. It was the nearest thing to wikipedia.
My parents did all they could for we three children. All we are we owe to their encouragement and sacrifice. Don’t get me wrong, we worked our way through college but the encouragement is what got us to do that. My sis and I remark frequently that we never once heard our Dad say he did not have enough time for us. No matter the hour he was always available to help but he just about never told us what he would do. It was infuriating then but I am grateful for him holding his thoughts and making us reason.
Mom was never far away to comfort hurts or to ease an injustice or to demonstrate what grit and determination really are. She always powered through to provide no matter the late hour. A more determined woman I have never known.
We have all the china as well and I wonder what to do with it the rosepoint silver and the crystal that were all so treasured. When my wife got her china she ordered it and inspected each piece taking back any flawed items until the whole set was perfect. I laughed but appreciated how much it meant to her. It was something her Mom wanted but never had.
Stuff.
* Failures are not only, not landing that job, not launching a successful business. Failures, as explained by Progessive instructors, include their own failure to start ANY of those efforts.
When you talk with these folks, you quickly understand that, they blow their education on useless classes/credits, spend their "free time" partying & entertaining themselves and denigrate "Big (insert whatever here) ", as being the root of all evil while simulataneoulsy, worshiping the fruits of those very same " big evil companies".
They end up with an obnoxiously pompous attitude of self importance, that all "you people" are just too foolish to recognize, while working in service sectors.
The only usefulness they serve is moving into the nastier areas of town and patronizing small businesses (that take advantage of thier predilections) and raising the stock price of 'Pabst Blue Ribbon" & a variety of mustache/beard cream purveyors.
I am an endangered species. I am a conservative millennial who also chose education as my career path.
I teach high schoolers. I have told my friends and family that I am terrified for our country. I have honestly had students that could not identify the United States on a map and have argued with me that socialism/communism is a great idea! I have more hilarious/depressing stories on what they don’t know.
My dad used to say the day music died was when the Beatles landed in the US. I say that the day education died is the day that No Child Left Behind was passed in 2001.
Many people bash teachers on here, but I can honestly say that this is not a direct result of teachers. This is a direct result of tying success in the classroom to test scores. There is a disproportionate amount of time spent on math and reading/writing in elementary. Many districts/states require so much time spent on those subjects that there is literally no time left for any kind of science, history, economics, geography, health, etc. The first time they are truly exposed to these subjects is in middle school. Because of this, they never reach the point of analytical thinking in high school/college and are simply still learning facts. For example, students first learn of the different forms of government in their junior or senior years of high school.
Educators do tend to be a liberal bunch, but I strongly disagree that teachers are government cronies used to manipulate and brainwash our children. Teachers as a whole are overwhelmed, under appreciated, overworked, and underpaid. They are discouraged with people with no experience in education dictating what they can and cannot teach on a daily basis. Teachers are the middlemen left with no choice but to follow the regulations given to them.
Cool. I teach at a university also.
All young people should spend a minimum of two years in the military services of this country. .... I used to think that way also. But why put the military and it’s effective training into upheaval over a bunch of ignorant wanna be slaves who would be sueing every day over no safe spaces?
Amen.
I still have several volumes but they're stashed away with a similar set from turn of last century, a Conrad anthology, and "Paddle to the Sea".
Scary that they've been replaced by Wikipedia, "Illustrated Novels" (comics), and electric gizmos. More scary that most of those gizmos involve either emoticons or war games.
Yes, that is scary about the junk gizmos and the electronic part is scary. So much knowledge is stashed in Zeroes and Ones. So easy to be wiped out.
We hold on to our Foxfire series of books and many other how to things like the Merck Manual and the Physicans Desk Reference, Civil Engineer’s and Mechanical Engineer’s reference and such other similar things.
there are an incredible number of impossibly ignorant people out there...
myself, I've always been a news hound....every since the Cuban missile crisis...
yep, the guys who can fix things and make things are rapidly diminishing...
If you have not shaped some values and foundation by the time they are 12 you have lost them. After that it is pretty much just information and does not become part of their character. So sad.
From third grade to sixth are the teachers I remember the most. Sure there were a few others in subjects that I can name but these three or four years planted the seeds to what I wanted to know instead of what I had to learn. Geography in 4th grade and Mrs. Watson, Science in 6th with Mr. Davidson and making little tin electric motors, learning about circuits, lemon batteries, mechanical linkages, the four cycle engine stages and making electromagnets; Mrs. Roher and history in 5th grade and all the stories of our nation and even the world. Mr. Connors in 9th grade and history and civics that he made come alive by seeding it with history and how it shaped the world we live in. Mr. Maddox and American History in 11th grade and all the things he challenged us to think about more deeply. Mr. Slater who taught us Physics and Biology and encouraged and let us go off on interesting tangents and how he helped us apply the things we just had to learn. The rest was just required. These things though were fun. These things were over 50 years ago for me and I still remember particular days. I wish I had better math and english teachers though. The ones I had could never cause excitement about what they were teaching us.
My Mom was a teacher, my Dad a professor and engineer. They both loved to educate not just teach. Momma touched and shaped more lives than Dad and her legacy is what she gave to four generations of children in our town. Both of them though worked together to give what care they could to those who needed a hand.
Millenials see themselves as more calm and collected than prior generations. They are not crazy for drugs, alcohol and smoking and can accept random casual relationships with ease.
This is all a reaction to what was happening in the world in the 1990's and early 2000's. Millenails were brought up on video games and virtual reality. Millenials have never experienced a national draft, extreme poverty or deprivation and they see politics as an excercise in compromise with no black or white - only grey areas.
They have never heard of the Pol Pot killing fields and see no need to learn about the cold war, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the past. Common culture passes for an education among some millenials.
They have never seen large scale war or tragendy and feel immune to the possibility. Blame the TV happy talk news, blame the soap opera TV and Movies pushed by hollywood movie industry, just don't blame the parents. Unless you were living amish style - the kids were indoctrinated with the touchy/feely non-judgemental stuff that keeps them so artificially happy.
Maybe that lack of materialism is good for our world. Maybe a culture in which people more readily give of themselves is a good thing. I tend to think it's delusional, and that for every person who's willing to give, there are ten people willing to take. And there will always be those deadbeats who refuse to carry their share of the load.
But that's not my world. My world is one where I keep the property I earn, and where I share it with those whom I choose IF I choose, not when it's coerced from me in the name of some government tyrant.
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