Little Adventures Go A Long Way

Just because we have things called schools, it does not mean that they teach the way a school should.

It is probably not even possible to be actually taught, all our knowledge consists of things we learn ourselves.

Learning is an inside out process, not an outside in as teachers seem to believe.

Reading, writing, arithmetic, and what should be painting, composing, and programming.

Does benefit from a teacher, as these subjects are tool-kits.

Calculus, Functional Reactive Programming (my favorite), Physics, Astrophysics, Chemistry, Biology, are different from tool kits.

These need the kindling of a flame from within, and they can only be truly entered once the student’s curiosity call for them.

Forcing kids to memorize that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, and then having them pass the tests, is not education, it is fraud.

It is also fraudulent to have art students turn in ugly misshapen crap, and grading that as passable.

As with temporary memorization for the purpose of passing tests, the students know what they are turning-in, in the art class.

A really nice art teacher, and they are always so nice, whispered to me “How is he doing this?” after a boy turned in a work of art.

It was superior to most other works, but he wanted people to believe he was special.

In fact he likely used somebody else’s photo, so his traced work of art wasn’t really his own.

But he did find a source image, with charcoal darks, and white chalk highlights, so he got that part right.

I told the teacher that he probably used a projector, but she wouldn't let me finish, just nodded and faded away.

Her class was a disaster, I had to figure out how to use watercolors on my own.

And, there was a suspicious event, where she led everyone to the school store, to buy paint only from that store.

And this was during the lecture, the colors were significant, but she did not emphasize what they were traditionally used for.

What the formulas were for flesh tones, what the various do’s and don’ts were.

The whole time she talked, I kept looking at the projector above her head.

We could take photos of each other, project them, study their colors, apply some filters to see what everything was.

We could even take manipulated images to a photo printing pharmacy, so that we would have shadow, highlight, midtone, and color reference.

It would have cost cents to print them, instead we turned in crap, still be4lieving that this class was good for something.

But actually, we simply got tricked, by a wonderful person, who left no evidence of fraud, lies, failure to teach.

We turned in crap, got good grades, and overall spent several hundred dollars for the class.

All the students walking out of that class, with the ability to paint perfectly proportional and colored portraits.

Would have changed our lives, if this wonderful teacher just shut up, and let us use the projector.

We could all learn to setup a tiny business where we hand paint, pet portraits.

We would all be hooked on art, our lives permanently altered.

Instead when I told her the boy used a projector, she saw that as a negative.

I saw a man learning to paint photo-realism freehand, I saw how he was memorizing, redrawing the same scenes.

Pausing from time to time, and saying he made a mistake.

Freehand realism, may just be an expression of genius for him, but for us, it is not, it is a way to keep us participating in class.

A way to make us feel inferior, so that we sit there waiting for the movement where it all adds up together.

I dropped out the day I made the Dean’s List, not a singe one of those classes changed my life.

And when I learn on my own, that is exactly what I get each and every time.

And learning on your own, is exactly what little adventures are.

You are not a bird to be fed, you are a Human that must rise.

Grow and grow all the way up, until you become a great being.

And begin changing other people’s lives, for the better.

Please, examine life, so that you are not caged, so that you know yourself.

So that not until it comes to die, you realize you have never actually lived [paraphrasing Thoreau].