Letter Letter

Something About Which I Know Nothing

Permit me to conserve some text from the blogs in which I introduce and re-introduce myself:

Q:  Why should we pay attention to you?  Are you an expert on anything?
A:  Like everyone, I have my areas of knowledge.  I'm pretty good with electronics and some physics.  I'm terrible with squishy human stuff.  Also, like everyone,  this lack of expertise won't prevent me from declaiming on subjects about which I know nothing. (Emphasis supplied.)

Although there are many subjects about which I know nothing, I embody especially comprehensive ignorance about the subject of education. I suspect this is true of many people, including parents of school-age children, teachers of school-age children, and authorities on education. If that weren't the case, I don't think it would require up to 12 years to turn out a minimally useful citizen who can barely do simple sums and who believes in natal horological astrology. My super power in this aspect of human affairs is being willing to admit my ignorance. That being said, I believe I have discovered at least a clue as to how some of those 12 years of education are misspent.

The Clue

This short letter-to-the-editor appeared in the local Sedona newspaper:

A day-fraction well spent, presumably. If nothing else, the children now know how to behave and can confidently be taken on field trips to the buggy whip factory and shown around the plant where whale oil is purified and bottled for their lamps.

Since I was espousing my ignorance in this blog, I had decided to mention my theory about forcing young people to read books they hate. My exemplar is Jane Eyre, designed, or so I thought in my youth, to turn a growing boy's brain to mush. As the dreaded words were about to be typed, I remembered that I may have expatiated upon that previously. And so I did. I'm nothing if not consistent in my theories, even after a 6-year gap.

Another Letter

In the very same letter column that reminded me that postal mail might still exist for another few years and continue finding its way to finials, was this remarkable epistle.

God Bless Sedona. And—why not?—flux and equilibrium as well.