Friday, July 03, 2015

Geography or Finding Your Way Home


On the restroom wall at the Newseum in Washington, DC.

My world grows even smaller in this little county of mine on a daily basis.  Some days I feel as if I have crawled back into a little cave and rolled back a large stone behind me as I settle in with the strange but nice cave people who are afraid of bright white lights because no one ever told them about electricity or perhaps even the sun.

What has brought on this perspective you might ask?  While I was talking to my doctor of less than one year (who did indeed give me a referral/transfer to another female doctor in the same practice and from whom I already have an appointment for follow-up blood work in a few months) we discussed the culture of this county that she was gleefully leaving---see prior post.

The doctor and I are both well educated and have opportunities that allow us to seek answers to our questions in this universe and to which we can sometimes add actual experiences. We also do not fear questioning our experiences.

I had mentioned to this Doctor that upon our return from France my husband had been talking to one of the landscapers at the museum, a young man of about 35 with a pleasant disposition and a happy personality.  The young man asked my husband where we had gone.  When my husband told him "France" the young many looked up and then asked, "France?  Where is that?"

Hubby had the good grace not to laugh or ridicule or disbelieve and said it was in Europe.  The young man said. "Oh..,"  and we will never know if any of this made any sense to him at all because the subject of the conversation changed.

After relating this tale to my Doctor she responded with another more disturbing tale.  She had been in line in the local hardware store, and while waiting, struck up a conversation with another customer.  The customer asked where she lived.  She responded with the name of a small town in this area (let us say for this story's sake it was called Colorado).  The person she was talking to responded, "Oh, that is across the bridge and by the military base."  She smiled and said, "Yes.  Some people think I mean the state Colorado when I say that."

The person said, "The state?"

She turned to them,"  Yes, you know, the STATE of Colorado, not the town."

The person responded in all seriousness with," Oh, is there a state named Colorado?"

In both of these cases the persons in these stories were well dressed, bright eyed, spoke English without an accent, and would give no indication they were tremendously sheltered or unsophisticated or part of a dysfunctional education system.  Anecdotal stories like these help me understand accept why some people can take seriously a Presidential candidate such as Donald Trump while people in Europe shake their heads in wonder at us and our backwardness and wasted prosperity.  (I do not live in Appalachia or the Deep South, I live in a place much like where you live.)

"Public education does not exist for the benefit of students or the for the benefit of their parents.  It exists for the benefit of the social order.  We have discovered as a species that it is useful to have an educated population.  You do not need to be a student or have a child who is a student to benefit from public education.  Every second of every day of your life, you benefit from public education.  So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don't personally have a kid in school:  It's because I don't like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people. " John Green

14 comments:

  1. Encounters like this boggle my mind.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The world expands and contracts depending on perspective. I have copied out the quote on education to share liberally.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Maybe it's a state issue, not an economic one? We live in Oregon and one of my grandsons, by the time he was 8, I think, could name the capitol of every state but also could tell you where the smallest countries were around the world. I wonder if we are becoming an even more divided country based on how important education is to those in our state. For some, education is something to fear as it might tell their children about evolution. Parents like that might want their children to read but not to learn about the great literature or diverse ideas. I do feel fear for our nation with the attitudes that seem to be taking over so many places where reality TV is their education :(

    What I'd like to see is for us to recognize that education goes beyond K-12. So any student who got good grades-- not great but good enough-- would have their tuition paid to the university, college or trade school of their choice-- so long as they maintained good grades. I'd like us to see education as more than just something to get through but a way to reach beyond what we know to be to what we might yet be.

    ReplyDelete
  5. there have always been poor students, those that didn't pay attention and were just marking time til they graduated but it is far beyond that now I fear with the defunding of public education for so many years. what I don't understand is how these politicians who keep cutting education budgets (and their base who hate to pay taxes for all the services and benefits they enjoy) think our population is going to be able to compete in a world economy.

    ReplyDelete
  6. It is scary to think where our country is headed if too many current and future (today's kids) citizens are as uneducated/ignorant as the examples given in your post. I may be old and behind-the-times, but education was always the key to individual and society success. We can go forward, or we can stand still for awhile and then slip backward. Any politician cutting education funding deserves to be voted out ASAP.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh, this fits so well with a disturbing "conversation' I had on line on a Nextdoor bulletin board. These people were upset about the wording of a public service announcement on MSNBC supporting properly funding public education. A site called RedFlag News and twisted and warped the phrase "our children don't belong to their parents, they belong to the community". They were all convinced that "Socialists" wanted the government and schools to take over the raising of our children.
    These people live in my neighborhood. One is on the city council. Their ignorance and fear appalled me.

    ReplyDelete
  8. As a former geography teacher I am somewhat appalled.

    ReplyDelete
  9. When I hear what some people say I shake my head in disbelief. I fear that America is getting dumber, and all the electronic devices sapping intelligence aren't helping.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This is one reason i did home educate, and then send my kids to a private school as long as i could. It wasn't to protect them from learning and ideas, it was to make sure that my special ed child didn't get put in a classroom doing nothing but coloring (she's in college now), and make sure they did learn.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous12:50 AM

    Amen to John Green. I believe in public education so everyone can go - but with my own kids, I made sure I supplemented what they were learning. And as much as I could, I volunteered so that I could be there for other kids. It drives me crazy when people say there is no reason to memorize things like state capitals. Or states! Good grief, my first grade teacher had a puzzle that taught me the states!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Oh m. G.! I'd laugh out loud if it were not so sad for our poor country.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Two very nice quotes, thank you.

    And no, we "haven't come to this." I was attempting a sideways glance at humor while enjoying the flag. That man is a part of the San Diego water scene and well known for his eccentricities. The boat is unique unto itself being vastly overpowered with a flag that should pull it down but doesn't. Besides all that, I got a shot of a fully displayed and flapping in the wind garrison flag. A rare thing that brings a smile to my face.

    ReplyDelete
  14. There are different kind of smarts... book smart and life/street smart.

    There are many who go to university and graduate and are dumb as door knobs. They have no common sense. While many have the paper stating they graduated. In my eyes an education should provide a skill set that employers want. There needs to be a return on the investment. Our youngest finished and earned a general degree in women studies. Okay she's smart, she knows how to learn... but to what end? That's where I have a problem with the education system.

    The education system needs to evolve. Communities need to be engaged. Something broke along the way, fragmented and eventually disappeared. I'm not quite sure how to identify what IT is but IT is fleeting. Occasionally you'll see glimpses of IT, but not often.

    I live in Canada and receive American news. I'm often surprised how the news is portrayed. Anything that is international in nature, often has a very narrow field of view. I don't know why that is. In Canada there is TV show with a segment called "Talking to Americans". They make fun of American's by making something up about Canada and asking for their view on it.

    Curious? Watch it here: https://youtu.be/CHON2Zub_2s

    For what it's worth, there are plenty of stupid people in Canada too! lol



    ReplyDelete

Take your time...take a deep breath...then hit me with your best shot.