Boat Forum / Cruising / June 2005

Self-followup. I find this tendency ("hammering down") to be a general
one in society, not confined to the school system alone. I add a poem
by our favorite capitalization-impaired poet, ee cummings:

to be nobody but yourself in a world whcih is doing its best, night and
day, to make you everybody else
means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and
never stop fighting

Yeah, you're right.

Stephen

Yeah, I'm against that.

Larry,

Wow!  Based on what you wrote below are you sure that you ever want to go
cruising?  Seems to me that kids on a real cruising boat have a lot of
opportunities to meet and socialize with kids.  What they don't have is
the opportunity to fall in with the wrong crowd and end up stealing cars
or selling drugs to their school chums.

I'll grant you that a "normal" teenager who has been raised on cable TV,
no homework, and unlimited internet/cell phone will be pretty bored while
the boat is getting moved.

BTW, while I was growing up I didn't WANT to live on a farm and have to do
farm chores while my friends were watching TV.  I didn't WANT to run a tractor
and harvester through the summer while my friends were lounging around down
at the swimming pool.  Looking back now though, I see that I'm better off
for it, and I'm glad that my dad was wiser than I was.

Usually, what kids WANT isn't all that good for them.  I'll bet that most
people who ask will find out that their kids don't WANT to go to school.  I
know I didn't ;-)

And BTW, I've never noticed kids being shy about telling Daddy when they're
unhappy either.

YMMV,

Don W.

Actually, I have no agenda. I merely object to the bullshit that we are fed by
the media from the politicians.

When Australia invaded east Timor in a purely humanitarian gesture to "save the
poor East Timorese", we in Australia had to pay an extra "war tax". What most
people did not realise at the time was that plans had already been drawn up for
the building of a refinery at Darwin to cater for the expected oil from east
Timor of which nothing appeared in the media. One month after the troops
arrived, an agreement was signed by the new government. For years Australia had
kept its hands off the former Portugese colony. When the Indonesians invaded,
when 5 Australian journalists were killed by the military, when thousands of
people were slaughtered etc, etc. not a word of protest was heard. as soon as
there was evidence of oil, they sent in the troops. Why tax us and not the oil
companies.

Perhaps you should bear in mind that your president is defacto, also ours yet we
cannot vote in the American presidential elections. What he and his
administration does influences us in the rest of the world to a very large
degree - eg Middle East foreign policy, carbon emissions etc . I cannot
understand why, when anyone makes any comment that may be remotely misconstrued
as a criticism of US foreign policy, paranoia such as yours leaps to the fore. I
have heard Rumsfield stating on CNN that yes, the US gave Sadam the Weapons of
mass destruction and have read in US magazines that they also gave them the
chemiocal weapons to fight Iran (Sadam was once considered a good US ally), yet
we are still; fed bullshit. I have met few anywhere, even in the Middle east who
wished him to stay in power. Why not admit to the lies and admit that it was all
for oil? Remember, Australia also invaded alongside the US and Britain. I am an
Australian as well as a New Zealand citizen and feel that I am permitted to
criticise my own government.

For the record, I am not anti-American, quite the contrary. I am looking forward
to sailing along your eastern coastline next year. Perhaps you should wear a hat
when out in the sun so as not to redden your neck.

It is why the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans are all whippin' our a.ses.  A
kid has to WORK HARD to get into a Japanese high school.  It isn't handed
him on a platter, he works for it, so he appreciates what it does for him
in their culture.  We, on the other hand, treat all kids the same, to our
detriment.  We are NOT all the same, neither are our children.  How stupid
it is to treat them so.  The really smart ones are bored to tears.  The
ones in the middle who are motivated work hard.  The lesser of them flunk,
over and over and noone cares.  We blame them for flunking.  We beat them
up.  However, if our liberal arts education system were run by INTELLEGENT
people, instead of those who can't put batteries in a flashlight (it's
true, I used to teach electronics and knew many who couldn't), we would try
to recognize HOW the children are different, how their wants are in
different directions, and stop trying to shove them into the liberal arts
holes in the pegboard.  A kid who is dying to fix complex automobile
engines....or (on topic) a marine diesel...has no opportunity until
released from his 12-year prison sentence to acquire his skills.  Very few
schools have apprenticeship programs like the young boy taken under the
wings at Orange County Choppers on American Chopper is doing.  We closed up
the vocational schools teaching children real skills because we don't want
them TOO INDEPENDENT or TOO SKILLED that our corporations can't turn them
into cheap slave labor (or labour if you like).

So, the geniuses running Asian schools in these three countries simply take
over the world, quietly, unendingly....while the Americans can't find a
skilled boat mechanic, plumber, brick layer, carpenter, electrician,
outboard motor mechanic, electronic technician, etc....the skilled labor
that keeps the world pumping....

Not necessarily.  If I have an applicant with a "B" average in math thru
trig., chemestry and physics, and a foreign language (whether from a public
or private school or a *recognized* home study program) I can pretty much
depend on his/her having some knowledge of those subjects - enough
confidence that I'd bring them for interviews.  OTOH, if a application shows
no math, science or languages in high school and "satisfactory" for grades
in dumbell English, study hall and gym - or worse if it says "home schooled"
with no backup credentials whatsoever I'd prolly keep looking.

Unfortunately, as Larry says, nobody has "shop" classes any more - classes
that teach kids to be apprentice carpenters, electricians or machinists.  I
don't think this is as much politically motivated as it is fear of
liability. Many (most?) 14-18 year olds are too immature to trust with a
hammer let alone run machine tools or work with electricity.  Remember,
Daniel Boone and Jesse Chisohm were doing their things by age 12 - how many
modern teens would you trust to carry a gun?