How we teach the wrong lessons

Kindergarten through 12th grade, two years for my AA, two more years for my BS and three more years for my JD, that is 20 years of propaganda and school. I have always hated school. I worked from age 12 forward while being in school. I hated school much more than working and I have had to work for 38 years.

I equate school with a torture chamber. That is how it felt. The downside of Asperger's. Two problems with school, we are asked to get our social indoctrination from all children and one authority figure. What is wrong with this picture? We are taught about life, we are trained to respond to commands and what to think. I was not a good student.

It used to be that children learned at home and from family and friends. When I have a new trainee, I teach by asking questions. I give answers on occasion; but, ask questions first. It is about the answers, it is about learning what questions to ask yourself. That is learning. It is learning to analyze the world. Learning the answers is the boring part.

We teach children to find the answers as if it were some Easter egg hunt. We never know the answers completely. Most teachers disliked having me in their class, a few very special ones enjoyed mentoring me. One taught me Spanish, one taught me Stage (he passed away very young not long after, he was an example of a good man to me), one taught me wood working (he was a World War II vet and had a great perspective on life), one taught English (she was very slightly deformed and had a heart that was so deep and loving a truly gentle soul), one taught me Constitutional Law (he was one of the objective people I have ever known a true lover of truth). There were others, a few. The others just wanted me to accept what they told me, that was fairly unlikely.

Answers are so boring, they so kill the chase. School should be a game. The whole thing should be a game, we should be teaching people the joy of playing together in search of solutions. Instead we teach them to follow orders, be quiet and listen and compete. I have so many bad school stories it is ridiculous. I will tell one.

I was in a class, it was probably 1977. The class was on Women's Studies, it was the 70s and the time of the "Woman's Movement". I knew the teacher and had classes with her before. On the first day she wanted to make some point. She said that most people couldn't name 15 famous women in history. She gave us five minutes to write as many names of famous women as we could. I listed about 104.

After the five minutes she asked how many each person listed by groups. My hand stayed up the longest, she asked how many I listed, I told her. She snickered and asked me to read the list, in disbelief. I began down the list, I had listed actresses, queens, historical figures, I then said Matoaka. She thought I had made the name up and asked me who it was, I explained that it was Pocahontas' real name, She angrily told me to leave the class and go the principals office.

One might ask how I knew Matoaka, I had seen it on a television show for kids. I was given another class to attend by the principal. I remember being taught as a kid that your principal was your pal. Mine was not.

I could not understand why I was humiliated and thrown out of class for having the best answers. I thought I had passed the test by knowing more names, I was mistaken, I was taken out of the class because I knew more famous women than the teacher who was female. I didn't understand that the question we were asked to answer we were supposed to fail at so that the teacher could prove a point, by answering correctly it proved her point was invalid.

I hope you see that school is not about truth and not about investigation it is about indoctrination. Do not cure the autistic, we need no cure, we are quite fine. We find answers to questions that nobody is asking before they need to be found so that the answer is there when it is needed. Do not tell us what to be, there are risks in that.

School should not be about answers or proving points, it should be about questions and play and joy. People learn better that way, they want to learn. We have designed a system that people seek to escape, a jail for children. We pass people who cannot read and through out people who can because they will not conform. I thought it was about learning.

The only class I ever failed was Algebra I, I hated it, you were explained things, you were taught formulas. I do learn formulas if I do not understand the why. I do not accept things just because they work most of the time. I want to know the real answer. The complete answer.

The few teachers I had that accepted me for being different asked a lot of questions and entertained all answers. I was also raised by Jesuit priests, I was raised Catholic. I never had a priest touch me in a bad way, mine were all hard drinking, funny, intelligent, well educated boxers. I had some great priests.

The priests I learned from did it old school and Socratic, they never flinched at a question and never, ever told you not to ask questions. I am not a Catholic, I do not believe the Pope is infallible. That is why I left the church; but, I have nothing but respect for the men and women I knew personally. God has blessed me throughout my life by putting respectable, intelligent and caring people around me. The priests and nuns I knew were amazing people and well educated.

The Catholic church is being challenged right now. It is being challenged because a couple hundred miscreants out of millions of lovers of God are assholes and have used their position to do very bad things. While the Catholic church is under attack, we need to remember what they have done. They have built more colleges and hospitals than any atheist organization, the Shriner's don't even get close.

I am a protestant, I was raised by Catholics, I left the church to become a agnostic and eventually a Protestant. I became agnostic because the priests that taught me, taught me to choose for myself and question myself more than my beliefs. The priest that do follow their vows are amazing, no sex for life, most don't, can you imagine giving up sex to help others? Show me that 50% of priests are pedophiles before you attempt to tell me that priests are as a rule.

The media wants to give you answers and if you want answers you will get them, if you want understanding, you won't get it from the media.

Government Secrecy and the Internet in Australia

Watch the video and read the article.

The upswing, you don't deserve privacy; but, the government does. The government has a right to know everything about you. You are government property, the government is not yours. Where does this type of thinking come from, it comes from thinking that you need to be completely monitored so that if necessary you can be controlled.

Two years ago I was writing about government censorship and monitoring. I was told that I was a "conspiracy theorist". I specifically talked about what was coming in Australia. Putting our heads in the sand does not make the reality go away. Ignoring the invasion of our privacy and saying that you won't care if you have nothing to hide misses the real issue. The real issue is whether or not we the people are in charge of OUR governments and our lives.

I grew up with our phone tapped; but, there was a good reason and we knew it. People who choose to get top secret clearances know that they will be watched, it is a trade off. My father had a clearance. Random monitoring of people who have not chosen to be involved is wrong.

More of the same in Australia - Filtering the web.

More Science

Scientists are now saying that it is possible to go back in time. You just wouldn't be able to affect anything or something like that.

Elsewhere scientists explain how things can be connected and not connected at the same time.

Isn't science wonderful for explaining reality.

I am cheating the blog tonight. Had to work till 8:30 and didn't get home till much later. I was lucky, I got to spend some of it with a truly great friend. Someone who was there for me and puts up with my wackiness. I put him through so much and he kept me going, I have the best friends a guy could want. I think I will talk about them.