Get a proper education

 

There is a lot that you young readers visiting this Blog that you do not know about the past. How people like me lived in those days; the equipment we had at our disposal back then, and what life was really like. Here's a few selections.

This item is a mobile telephone. We had to carry it with us everywhere to receive and send messages to each other "on the go". It was large and clumsy to carry in your back pocket or jacket; but most people had a carrying case in the shape of a shopping bag. To call a friend you had to turn that circular thing round using different numbers because this telephone, unlike the ones you have today, did not have a screen or camera for you to send pictures of yourself to everyone.

This is how we used to send texts to each other. We had pre-cut pieces of paper on which we marked different alphabetical shapes with dark ink. When the ink dried we put the paper in a small wrapper called an envelope, and then we wrote the address of the recipient on it, and we put the envelope in a metal box in the street or shopping centre. Someone used to take each envelope and deliver it safely to each recipient. A little slower than today's texts, but it was more private and no one saw the dubious photos of yourself which people send by cellphone today.

The portable phone I showed above did not have the facility to play music; so we had this machine we carried with us as well. That circular thing on the platform is called a disc and somehow it contained the sound of people singing and music on it. So you had to carry the music machine with that big flower shaped thing at the top, as well as a selection of discs with you wherever you went to have music "on the go." I had to pay extra on the bus for this machine because it took extra room on the seat near me.

A bus was a long vehicle like the one above and people used to get in and be driven to pre-set destinations they wanted to go to. Just like your Mom and Dad taking you in the car but it was cheaper.

This old machine used to tell you what time it is. It did not have digital numbers that light up but those two pieces of metal used to go round and round and point to numbers to tell you what time it is. Young people in those days were very clever and soon learnt how to tell the time in these machines, and did not need a voice or a lit screen to tell them the time. These machines were too big to carry on your wrist, but we had them in our handbags with the portable telephone and music machine shown above.

And this is a portable radio. Not as easy to carry as today's electronic contraptions but we made do without much complaining and feelings of entitlements.

And this is Alexa, a young lady I knew back then. She may not have been as clever as the contraption you have at home with the same name; but she was much more entertaining!

And here's another thing I'd like to show you which you may not be familiar with.

This building is called a church. It's a place where many people used to go to and often discover God in their lives.

Life was certainly different back then, a little hard maybe, but we certainly got through.

The Price of Education

 

If you think education is expensive, try the price of ignorance. 

It seems to me that, despite all the technological, scientific, medical and all other advancements society has made over the past few years, we seem to have more ignorance than at any other previous times in the world's history.

It would be fair to say that in the past, say the Middle Ages, or whatever age you wish to choose, people were "ignorant" in many ways. I use the word "ignorant" politely and in its true sense. People were ignorant in that they did not know then what we know now.They did not know about electricity, medicine, science and all the things we know now. You can't blame them for that. They were still learning.

But now things are different. We know so many things that our predecessors could not even dream of. Computers, robotics, AI, medicine, surgery, and so much more. Yet, despite all this knowledge, a lot so freely available on the Internet, in books and elsewhere, ignorance seems on the rise more than ever before. People seem to glorify ignorance. They seem averse to learning. Education is laughed at as unnecessary. So often you see celebrities on TV, entertainers or sports personalities, attending quiz show and boasting at how little they know on any subject and how badly they did when at school. They parade their lack of knowledge as something to be proud of. The subliminal message being "I'm not educated by I did well!" 

Whilst that may be true for them it is not so for everyone. For every successful singer, actor or sportsman there are millions who have failed. But the message permeates vulnerable young minds who believe that they too do not need education. And the danger is that you have a future generation unable to think for itself and easy prey to be manipulated by false news, views and opinions.

Reminds me a bit of the Old Testament. Read there how many times God spoke to the people of Israel through many prophets and they did not take notice, they did not listen, they did not obey, and they paid the price. 

Anyway: Change of subject. May I recommend a wonderful book that teaches the Bible, (both Old and New Testaments), in easy to read simple language.

It's called BIBLE SUMMARY For Adults and Students by Michael Kotch. LINK HERE

How to educate!

 

HOW TO EDUCATE - NOT TEACH

 A certain private school recently faced a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick, and put it on in the bathroom.

That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night, the maintenance man would remove them and the next day, the girls would put them back.

Finally, the headmistress decided to do something. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man.

She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night.

To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.

He took out a long-handled mop, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it.

Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

Sometimes there are teachers. And then sometimes there are Educators.

We don't need no education!

Those of you who are young enough will remember the 1979 song by Pink Floyd entitled Another Brick In The Wall.

I'll show you the video later on.

In this song there's the memorable line "we don't need no education ..."

The song was playing on TV the other day and it set me thinking of all those hours spent at school learning things that had no effect whatsoever on my life thereafter.

Logarithms for instance. Those clever ones amongst you will know what logarithms are. What I remember is that we had books with every page filled with columns of numbers. Somehow we had to find the right page, count the columns at the top and stop at a given one, read downwards up to a point, and where the vertical column downwards met the horizontal list of numbers that was a logarithms. Or was it an anti-logarithm? Or a sine or cosine? I never understood it and it sent my brain off at a tangent ... or was it a co-tangent? The fact that I can't remember proves that it never helped me in life afterwards. I still burn the food when it is my turn to cook!

Which reminds me of a joke about Creation. In the beginning God told all creation to go forth and multiply. The snails were slow and came fifth. God was not happy with them.

A year later He came back to check, and sure enough, every one had had a good time and there were plenty of baby everything everywhere. Baby people, baby animals, baby fish, baby birds, baby snails and so on. And God was pleased.

However, He noticed that there were only two snakes. So He asked them, "Did you not have a good time? Why did you not multiply as I said?"

They replied, "We are adders. We need logs to multiply!"

Get it ... ??? No??? You need to learn about logarithms.

Another useless thing I learnt at school was the cumulative frequency of polygons. Can't remember what that was. Probably some disease which killed a lot of parrots. Hence Poly Gone!

Get it ... ???

Also, in chemistry ... I can't remember using anything I've learnt. But what I do remember is an experiment to discover the latent heat of fusion ... whatever that means.

Basically, I had a test tube melting some substance or other over a flame, (see my drawing above). When the substance has melted you turn the heat off. Then every minute or so you put a thermometer in the tube and measure and record the temperature. Obviously, as it cools the temperature lowers, (BIG DEAL).

What I did is leave the thermometer in the tube. As the substance cooled down it solidified again and the thermometer got stuck. So I re-heated the tube to get the thermometer out. It exploded and I had liquid mercury and liquid substance all over the desk.

I remember that the teacher had no sense of humour. And now, years later, I still burn the cooking.

When a friend told his dad that he was going to University to learn philosophy, his father replied, "That's good. Because I hear they are opening a great philosophy factory down the road!"

Youngsters are going to Universities and incurring great debts in paying fees and then gain a Degree which is no use to the country's economy, or will not get them a good job afterwards. For example Degrees in ancient languages, ancient history, literature, sociology, media studies, fashion and the arts. Granted, they are worthy subjects to study, but is there really a shortage of these skills in the world? For every person who succeeds in a career in these subjects there are probably 1000 who fail. So is it fair to encourage such education as opposed to say, medicine, nursing, and such skills that would benefit the world?

So I ask myself, as I remember the Pink Floyd song, why do we teach people so many complicated things that they will never use in later life?

Why not teach them to be entrepreneurs? How to start a business. How to make money. How to care for other people. How to nurture good values in life. How to be good citizens. And so many other positive how to that they can contribute to a better life and a better world.

Maybe I'm stupid, and I still have a lot to learn.