So one of my “Christian” employees was teaching the 5th grade elementary class today. They were learning about sound and doing the ole paper cups and string activity. I popped in to see what was going on and everyone is having fun screaming into cups and practicing English. The problem was, not one of the strings between the cups was pulled tight. Sound waves travel along the string when it is pulled tight (in case anyone here did not know that). So, the kids screamed English at each other and pretended to be on the telephone.
After class, I pulled the teacher aside and asked him (25-year-old male) do you know how the string telephones work. He gave me a blank look. I explained; 'If you make the string tight, sound waves will travel along it, and it will sound like a real telephone.
I picked one up and had him back away until the string was tight, about 4 feet. I spoke into the cup. 'See, this is how it works." His eyes got wide as he said, ‘Damn, learn something new every day.’ And I am just chalking it up to being raised by Christians in a Christian school. Praise the Lord!
I wonder how amazed he would be if I ripped a page out of the bible, folded it into a paper airplane, and threw it out the window? Angels? How else could you explain it?
To be fair, and without going into detail, I have encountered people with a similar lack of understanding of how stuff works. And those cases were not due to Christian schools. Some people are just highly ignorant of how stuff works, and that’s it. The biggest crime here seems to me to let ignorant people teach about their areas of non-expertise.
I can’t disagree. It wasn’t religion, but rather, a lack of family educational background, and my own ignorance, that aided me in failing 3 high schools, two junior colleges (2 year institutions) and a university. I have no idea how I got to where I am today. How I made the decisions I made. I do know that making one thing in your life, the most important thing in your life, can have an amazing effect on it. My decision to go to university and do whatever it took, after being kicked out, was an amazing decision. I have no idea where it came from, but I am certainly thankful I made it. I imagine I was saved from ignorance by my own stupidity. Hmmmm?
I’m still amazed that it was possible to go from being a housing project youth to just a state of existence where the focus wasn’t on survival/ always suspecting the motives of others. Or breaking into cars. Or looking for angles to work on people. Nevermind college, professional practice and the rest of it beyond that.
My original ‘one most important thing’ was to not end up like my alcoholic, non-high school graduating dad. I mean, he likely had his own issues that held him down in such ways but I was going to throw myself into something that at least seemed like it would prevent such an existence.
This something turned out to be the military, though I had only the foggiest idea about the chances that it might lead onto a better path.
Ohh… You are speaking to my heart. I didn’t grow up in the projects, but I grew up on state aid. I was lucky enough to begin working when I was very young. My mother made me buy the clothes she wanted me to have, from local thrift shops, with my pay. Can, I even begin to express how much I hated that. (It might have been easier if we had ever communicated with each other. If she had done some explaining. There was none of that shit in my family. You did as you were told, or you got beat. (I think that was just my generation.) When I was 16, I got busted for B&E. The detective drove me around the Balboa Peninsula and had me point out the homes I had broken into. Like an idiot, I complied. After all was said and done, they cleared 110 counts of B&E off their books. I’m sure some of it was padding, but they also missed a lot of the ocean front homes that the car was unable to reach. This was one good reason for me to get out of California before my 17th Birthday. Statistically, I should have ended up in prison like my brother and sister or a dead beat alcoholic like my father. Cheers on you mate for making it out of the zoo. Give yourself a pat on the back. I for one, have a very good idea of what you have been through. Life is fucking great on this side of the rainbow. And once you are over here, isn’t it amazing how people don’t seem to know what they have? I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. (And I know it!)
I wonder every day if folks know what they have, or if those who weren’t born into a far more danger and poverty-stricken existence realize just how difficult it is to extricate oneself from it. How familial cycles of such an existence can hold one in it like a vice.
How there are technically opportunities to lift yourself out, but good luck recognizing them or finding people around you who know how to (or want to) take advantage of and navigate them.
How methods of getting by in life that are taken for granted as immoral or stunningly dangerous or antisocial by those on the other side of the rainbow can be accepted modes of understanding and navigating your environment.
Or how, if you do start to get near the other side, you now have a tremendously steep hill yet to climb in developing the social and emotional tools necessary to exist and thrive there.
The biggest secret here is to lighten your load. That means letting go of friends and family and people that are holding you back. The recidivism rates for prison are around 70% One of the biggest reasons for this is that criminals get out and go right back to their old friends and old neighborhoods. Even when they try to make a change, their cultural baggage attracts them to the same characters in a new area. They don’t know how to move forward in a new way.
I once heard a story about the difference between a wise man and an intelligent man. An intelligent man climbs into an elevator, rides it to the top floor and gets out. He tries to spend the rest of his life up there. A wise man gets in the elevator, goes to the top, but then moves freely between the floors.
Fully agreed. This is a fruit of my experience, as well.
Learning this, as well as actually putting it into practice, is one of the many difficult parts of somehow finding yourself moving beyond the lower floors, IME.
Hi. Tin-Man here. Some of you might remember me. I know it’s been awhile, but chasing an incredibly smart two-and-a-half-year-old around five days a week and then working three nights a week leaves very little time for socializing lately. Not sure how much longer before we go back to our regular schedule. Depends on how long it takes his great-grandmother to get the mold problem fixed in her house. (She normally keeps him two days during the week, giving us a break.)
Anyway, just so you know, I still pop in and read the threads from time to time, despite not being able to respond much. So I’m keeping a close eye on you heathens, because I know how you like to talk shit about me when you think I’m not watching. Keep that in mind. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go take advantage of my my wife keeping him distracted so I can go poopie. Then we will be going to the ice cream shop while she starts getting ready for work. I bid you all a good day.
OMG I am sorry, I thought you said “caries” and I went straight to my dentist. So to welcome your return I am sending you my Dentists bill. After all I didn’t want to see him, it was you who triggered me. So it is yor responsibility. That’s my opinion.
Oh and glad to see you are keeping up your parental responsibilities. Love to see you two playing “Cops and Robbers” .
To be honest, sometimes it’s hard to determine who is who.
As for your dental bill, ask the dentist if he/she accepts exotic herbs and spices as payment. (And by “exotic” I mean some old damp boxes of salt, pepper, and moldy looking basil leaves I found hidden in the back of my kitchen cabinet.)
