[That is, greetings to Over-To-The-Youth people and From-The-Older-Folks people.]
Want advice? Sorry. Got none.
What I have instead is a longish story about how a 3rd grade Rutgers Preparatory School failure (me), who, after being rejected by Rutgers University at 18yo, miraculously moved toward the top of his class at the US Navy Nuclear Power School in Orlando Florida. Yay failure.
Later, after 6 years of serving in your navy, you're welcome, spent 3½ years, 1983-1986, earning a certificate of applied linguistics and 60 extra credits toward an undergraduate's degree in, are you ready for this(?), Liberal Studies Option III, and I graduated Magna Cum Laude. Glorious success!!
Success?
Of course later on I realized that none of these so-called accomplishments had anything to do with leading a meaningful life.
Unfortunately, the questions I was practically born with...
Who's in charge?
What's really going on?
How can I improve things?
...were left unanswered.
I taught school in Calexico for 28½ years. Mostly 2nd grade.
mid 1990s?
At some point I was asked to be our school district K-12 maths curriculum coordinator. I said no.
mid 1990s?
At some point I was allowed to create a workshop for teachers and adminiatration, exploring the uses of Internet search engines (think "Google") in our school system.
How did that go? When I connected a live feed from a camera in the Louvre Art Museum in Paris to a computer in a US elementary school library, it was called "Mark's art thing" and I was told that I was wasting my time and this Internet technology thing would never catch on.
It was considered silly by most that I was exchanging emails in Spanish between my 2nd grade class of Spanish speakers on the southern border of California and far away elementary school students in Santiago, Chile. I heard comments like "Trivial" and "Waste of time" and "How will this help them learn English?"
As time went on I began to see schooling and educating as very different things. How can I put it best?
Schooling is like constantly serving unsolicited advice to others. Educating is more like serving your own needs to comprehend yourself and the universe you live in.
Thumbnail sketch:
A schooling test question typically has one correct answer, usually a short precise answer, often straight from the textbook.
An educating question is never fully answered, and is forever open to revision, speculation, and amendment, depending on evidence, intuition, reason, and imagination.
Me, 2011-2016
Independent Study
Supervising Teacher.
In theory at least, independent study in a public school district is supposed to be a self-teaching or self-educating model. True, it is a step up from the force-fed curriculum of a classroom. Still, what it presents to the student is not quite like an opportunity to forage for wisdom on your own.
Appreciated efforts?
I began my own self education in earnest after 2017, the year I was asked to retire.
Were my career efforts to "teach different" appreciated by my employers? My retirement contract included stipulations that I should no longer seek to work in the school district, not even on a voluntary basis. It also stipulated that I was not to ever bring any legal charges against any school staff. Imagine that.
My study method:
SQRRR, SQ3R, mixed with a form of "trivium" learning, grammar-logic-rhetoric, has been applied mostly toward gaining active literacy skills and greater comprehension of historical patterns and trends.
I will not graduate from this education. It is a never-ending story.
I love to answer "What do you think...?" questions and "Why...?" and such.
I love to point out sources and references and I can explain how I've reached the conclusions I've come to so far.
I think civilization is in trouble, militarily, economically, socially, spiritually.
I am willing to work very hard to understand humanity's predicament, and to help others discover our potential toward recovering beauty, goodness, and truth.
OTTY & FTOF,
What?
Who?
Where?
When?
How?
Why?
What if...?
A Talk-a-holic
On-And-On Anon dropout
seeking listeners/readers
aka
mark spark
.
OTTY & FTOF,
[That is, greetings to Over-To-The-Youth people and From-The-Older-Folks people.]
Want advice? Sorry. Got none.
What I have instead is a longish story about how a 3rd grade Rutgers Preparatory School failure (me), who, after being rejected by Rutgers University at 18yo, miraculously moved toward the top of his class at the US Navy Nuclear Power School in Orlando Florida. Yay failure.
Later, after 6 years of serving in your navy, you're welcome, spent 3½ years, 1983-1986, earning a certificate of applied linguistics and 60 extra credits toward an undergraduate's degree in, are you ready for this(?), Liberal Studies Option III, and I graduated Magna Cum Laude. Glorious success!!
Success?
Of course later on I realized that none of these so-called accomplishments had anything to do with leading a meaningful life.
Unfortunately, the questions I was practically born with...
Who's in charge?
What's really going on?
How can I improve things?
...were left unanswered.
I taught school in Calexico for 28½ years. Mostly 2nd grade.
mid 1990s?
At some point I was asked to be our school district K-12 maths curriculum coordinator. I said no.
mid 1990s?
At some point I was allowed to create a workshop for teachers and adminiatration, exploring the uses of Internet search engines (think "Google") in our school system.
How did that go? When I connected a live feed from a camera in the Louvre Art Museum in Paris to a computer in a US elementary school library, it was called "Mark's art thing" and I was told that I was wasting my time and this Internet technology thing would never catch on.
It was considered silly by most that I was exchanging emails in Spanish between my 2nd grade class of Spanish speakers on the southern border of California and far away elementary school students in Santiago, Chile. I heard comments like "Trivial" and "Waste of time" and "How will this help them learn English?"
As time went on I began to see schooling and educating as very different things. How can I put it best?
Schooling is like constantly serving unsolicited advice to others. Educating is more like serving your own needs to comprehend yourself and the universe you live in.
Thumbnail sketch:
A schooling test question typically has one correct answer, usually a short precise answer, often straight from the textbook.
An educating question is never fully answered, and is forever open to revision, speculation, and amendment, depending on evidence, intuition, reason, and imagination.
Me, 2011-2016
Independent Study
Supervising Teacher.
In theory at least, independent study in a public school district is supposed to be a self-teaching or self-educating model. True, it is a step up from the force-fed curriculum of a classroom. Still, what it presents to the student is not quite like an opportunity to forage for wisdom on your own.
Appreciated efforts?
I began my own self education in earnest after 2017, the year I was asked to retire.
Were my career efforts to "teach different" appreciated by my employers? My retirement contract included stipulations that I should no longer seek to work in the school district, not even on a voluntary basis. It also stipulated that I was not to ever bring any legal charges against any school staff. Imagine that.
My study method:
SQRRR, SQ3R, mixed with a form of "trivium" learning, grammar-logic-rhetoric, has been applied mostly toward gaining active literacy skills and greater comprehension of historical patterns and trends.
I will not graduate from this education. It is a never-ending story.
I love to answer "What do you think...?" questions and "Why...?" and such.
I love to point out sources and references and I can explain how I've reached the conclusions I've come to so far.
I think civilization is in trouble, militarily, economically, socially, spiritually.
I am willing to work very hard to understand humanity's predicament, and to help others discover our potential toward recovering beauty, goodness, and truth.
mark spark
Q & A:
markhurych@gmail.com
.