What a statement to come from an educator whose job it was to make these kids exceptional!
But he may have been right to the extent that our kids are being betrayed by the very educational system which has been provided "free" by the American public.I wrote a poem several years ago entitled "The Teacher" which puts the finger on what has happened to our educational system:
The Teacher
There she was, already old,
Standing there
At the crossroads
Stopping me with her
Cold blue eyes.
She terrified me
In those days
With her constant demands
Always turning my eyes
Outward on the world
Away from the abyss inside
Now I understand her fear.
Late some nights
You will find me there
At that same crossroads
On the chance that
One of mine
Should happen by.
The world is an exciting and wonderful place for children. There are all sorts of gadgets that invite "tinkering" to see how they work. But the teacher and the parent must join in the process of turning their young eyes "outward on the world away from the abyss inside." Modern educational philosophy has set about to validate the "abyss."
Our children are now taught that their "feelings" are good indicators of who they are and what their role in the world is. Children are taught to view themselves through the lens of the "synthetic" environment. They are taught that perceptions of appearance, popularity, sexuality, gender, and many other parameters which are defined by pop culture instruments such as facebook, TV shows, school textbooks, are in fact real.
But when a child is taught how to build a kite, catch a fish, build scooter, roller skate, fix a flat tire on his bike, cook a meal, and a host of other small projects, his eyes turn outward on the world and away from the hopelessness and depression of the social environment promoted by the poverty brokers who now dominate our educational system.
"Tinkering" has produced our most productive people. Not only the famous ones like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Bill Gates, Mark Cuban and many others, but the millions of others who raise much of their own food, make their cars last 15 years, build all of the furniture in their homes (and others as well), keep their homes in tip-top condition, repair porch swings, keep a nice lawn, accumulate wealth through wise frugality, raise wonderful kids who do great things.
My point is, seekers, this may not be rocket science, but it produces rocket scientists instead of the poor lost kids who wind up at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations complaining because they have nothing. One of the greatest gifts that you can give to your kids is the rock-solid understanding that they can be successful at whatever they do by thoughtful tinkering.
I couldn't agree more. I come from a long line of tinkerers and I'm a couple months shy of marrying one. Tinkering not only brings us outside ourselves but it consistently exercises our brain, and allows us to think fast and stay sharp. I find I am happiest when I'm living the simplistic life, surrounded with the people I love and with something productive or fun to do around the house...tinkering!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mr. E., for being an angel for me in Lowes today! I love it when God speaks directly to my heart through others as He spoke through you to me today. I look forwarded to reading more of your words of wisdom as I try to raise four children in this scary society we are living in. God Bless you! Kim
ReplyDeleteTinkering! It was the only thing I had to do as a kid, pretty much. Did I envy the girls down the road who had all the newest of dolls and their accessories, including clothes, shoes, even houses and cars? Yes, I did. But, then I got over it. My favorite tinkering was standing on the bottom drawer of my Mom and Dad's old Bird's Eye Maple high-boy dresser, and go through all the gadgets Mom and Dad had amassed over the years. At Dad's end, I sorted through his treasures, which included a dozen or so blood donor pins that show how many "gallons" of blood he'd donated, his cuff links, his tie bars, so many things of his, and they all came either apart, or operated in some manner that caused me to tinker with them. Then, moving on down the rows of drawers, I came to Mom's accumulated "treasures" including pop bead pearl necklaces (yes, each pearl was an individual round object having a male fitting on one side and a female fitting on the other, and I would just pop those beads together, and unpop them again, just for the sheer pleasure of it. I loved that old dresser, it was a source of much treasure-hunting and tinkering. Pretty much all my life, I've taken apart and put things back together again, just to see how or if they'd work again. Most of those objects were toys, when I had my kids. This Mom was always the master toy fixer, and with the magic of a bit of tin foil and a couple new batteries, the annoying robot they'd gotten for Christmas from an in-law would whir back to life, and the boys eyes would grow wide with delight! Good thing I knew how to tinker, huh? Another thing I loved to tinker with was the old puzzles, that came in Cracker Jack boxes or from somewhere, I never did remember how I came about having them, but these puzzles required me to slide these letter or number tiles around to put them in sequence! Today's kids would say "boring!" but to this day, I credit those puzzles for knowing how to eyeball a situation and put it into order, I'm just that methodical. Amazing, isn't it? How something pleasurable can turn into a life lesson that you never forget? I'm thinking so, and I'm grateful, now, that tinkering was about all I had to do in those early days. Never thought I'd say those words, because it was always a "woe is me" attitude that I didn't have all that the "other, better off kids" had. I feel so much richer for having been from a long line of tinkerers.
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