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Learning in school vs. real life

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by tochatihu, Jun 25, 2017.

  1. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    It is such a thing for me that people develop their own meaningful understanding of self and the world around. Schooling ought to contribute, but goals there are sometimes poorly posed, and teachers there are sometimes poorly equipped for the task.

    I see PriusChat postings suggesting that people get past that by their own observations. So, let me start this by asking:

    1. What did you learn in school that provided mot useful 'environmental' information?

    2. What did you learn outside school, towards the same question?

    My motivation is that all such learning is a good thing, but that schooling is not particularly well done. It might be better done if informed by observations from folks here.

    Emphatically I am not hoping for people to agree with 'my ways'. I learn much more from people who don't agree, and engage in discussions.

    To kick this a bit higher, I'll suggest that 'environmental' is very poorly stated (here) as tree hugging. Could be better stated as an understanding of how humans fit into earth's biological systems. Better still, as how this fitting may change as humans command increasing shares of global energy and material cycles.

    Every one who reads (and may post in response) has some thoughts about this, and those came from somewhere.

    Where?
     
  2. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Could I answer a simpler question, "Define the universe and give three examples." But I'll give a try:

    1. What did you learn in school that provided most useful 'environmental' information?

    High school chemistry - provided the basic understanding of how inorganic chemistry works. Once you understand chemistry, the rest is easy. I would also add high school physics, math and vocational tech electronics. Of course the most important, learning how to read that leads to a life time of learning.

    2. What did you learn outside school, towards the same question?

    The first was a 1960s article in "Science Newsletter" about run-away greenhouse gas leaving the surface of Venus hot enough to melt lead. Subsequent articles about the Soviet Venus probes confirmed my understanding.

    Where?

    I grew up in Oklahoma and most of my education was in Oklahoma: Colberson elementary, Wilson elementary, Atoka elementary, parochial junior high school, John Marshall high school, and Oklahoma State University. In the Marines, I took extension courses in Okinawa Japan and Washington DC area. Later, I took courses at University of Alabama Huntsville and a remote course from Australia.

    You didn't ask Why?
    • Casual motivation by car reviewers lying to themselves and everyone else that hybrid cars were only bought by 'green' owners. I usually pointed out that I like green as in "greenback Yankee dollars" and treated their nonsense as what it was, self-imposed stupidity. They never understood that fuel efficiency predates hybrid cars and has the same cache as 'wheels', 'paint', 'sound system', e.t.c.
    • Hard motivation by the 'coal troll', @mojo, who comes here to stimulate, encourage, anti-fossil fuel arguments and motivation. His constant 'cut-and-paste' with the inability to defend nonsense he does not understand ... well no honest man likes a propagandist.
    I still see efficient cars as a thing by itself, independent of the environment. I have had a life-long struggle against the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. So I see the earth not so much as a biological environmental lab as a heat engine powered by a fusion reactor, 5,778K, 93 million miles away with a diameter of 32 arcseconds and the 3K temperature of space. Sure, our existence is a by-product of life powered by the sun, still, I kinda like the physics more.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #2 bwilson4web, Jun 25, 2017
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2017
  3. mojo

    mojo Senior Member

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    My biggest influence was watching and believing "An Inconvenient Truth".
    Being a Gore supporter I was very concerned about the issue.
    After learning the actual truth about the issue Im not so much of a Gore supporter.
     
  4. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i didn't pay much attention while in school. they'd probably call it add or something today. maybe drugs would have helped.
    i was mostly interested in the opposite sex, it was pretty all consuming.
    since graduating college, energies were spent trying to survive, build a career, raise a family, etc.
    i don't know much about the environment, except to repeat what i read or hear. it's beyond my understanding.
     
  5. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    There was an old Steve Martin joke, "if you want to play a trick on your kids, teach them them to talk wrong (and then they will speak gibberish on the first day of school)".

    Seems to me no matter who we are and what we believe, we make an extra special effort to pass on our political beliefs to our kids/students.
     
  6. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Trying to pull out of a "checkered" past, I attended a Vocational College in my early twenties, took Structural/Civil/Architectural Drafting. I got hired on by a local consulting engineering firm (heavy industry, mostly mining), in their structural department.

    After about a year there I was on an assignment: there was a rock breaker mounted on the edge of a primary crusher, and it was shaking itself loose from it's concrete and anchor bolt moorings. The engineer decided what we would do is create a braced steel, four column base, that went through the concrete rock breaker base, down through several floors, to bedrock.

    So long story short, I drew up the engineer's design notes, doing my Vocation College best, the engineer checked it over and made comments/corrections, and off it went. To somewhere...

    A few weeks later, the engineer came by my desk with a THICK roll of drawings, saying "here's the shop drawings, look them over, see that they comply with what we've asked for, don't look too close, but just look for odditites, contradictions". Something like that.

    Which is what I did, and gradually the light began to dawn. These drawings, reams of them, were destined for a fabrication shop, left no stone unturned. My drawing, in comparison, was the proverbial sketch on a napkin. And beside a growing respect for the "detail side" of drafting, something started bugging me:

    When I'd done my drawing, I had no clue who it was it was destined for, that it was a "letter", for specific recipients. Sometimes more than one, but anyway: imagine teaching someone how to letter write, without teaching them who they're writing.

    That had been the approach of Vocational College teachers, and in a way it makes sense: you could sum up drafting in one or two sentences, say: "know your audience". And be out of a job, lol.

    A few years later, laid-off, I took the steel detailing course, at the same college. The main teacher was excellent, application-driven, hands-on.
     
  7. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i didn't make an effort to pass my political beliefs to my children, but their teachers sure did.:cool: