Lately I’ve been struck by the number of thought provoking posts in other blogs that I’ve been reading. I don’t think that the quality of what I’ve been reading has changed, rather I’ve simply become more aware. Tonight, I read this at fourlittlebirds:
Instead of being widely shared, the pattern languages which determine how a town gets made become specialized and private. Roads are built by highway engineers; buildings by architects; parks by planners; hospitals by hospital consultants; schools by educational specialists; gardens by gardners; tract housing by developers. […] This has gone so far that most people shrink, in fear, from the task of designing their surroundings. They are afraid that they will make foolish mistakes, afraid that people will laugh at them, afraid that they will do something “in bad taste.” And the fear is justified. Once people withdraw from the normal everyday experience of building, and lose their pattern languages, they are literally no longer able to make good decisions about their surroundings, because they no longer know what really matters, and what doesn’t.
I encounter this frequently in many facets of my life. Many people cannot imagine doing their own plumbing, renovations, car repairs, or becoming on some ground self-suffcient. The full quote(s) in the post provide one of the best illustrations of this phenomenon that I can recall.
This could also be said of critics of homeschooling and homeschoolers who strictly adhere to a curriculum:
Most people shrink, in fear, from the task of educating themselves. They are afraid that they will make foolish mistakes, afraid that people will disapprove, afraid that they will do something “wrong.” And the fear is justified. Once people withdraw from the normal everyday experience of learning, they are literally no longer able to make good decisions about their education, because they no longer know what really matters, and what doesn’t.
this reminds me very much of an email that I read from Mary Cronk, a leading independent midwife in the UK. She talks about how first of all midwives and doctors know best about giving birth, then it’s health visitors and teachers and so on, and asks why are we surprised that ppl get to be adults and suddenly don’t know how to do anything as we’re forever telling them that someone else is the expert.
Wish I could find it online, think it might have been a letter to a paper, but can’t remember any direct quotes from it.
thanks for the messages btw.
— jax · Jun 23, 05:55 AM · #
Good one honey.
— AndreaR · Jun 23, 08:19 AM · #
That is excellent. Both the quote and the analogy. As someone who wants to learn to do some of these things — plumbing, farming, building — I also find that it is kind of hard to work out where to go for good advice. The culture of expertise has made it difficult to get in. My dad wasn’t into that stuff so I didn’t learn when growing up.
But it is working out fine with the education stuff. Partly thanks to you and Andrea encouraging me to relax. And to finding other folks online to bounce ideas around with and help me see that it’ll all work out.
— JoVE · Jun 23, 08:59 AM · #
jax – I expect that there are those in many professions that have come to similar conclusions. I’ve seen it in writing here and there sometimes even alluded to in fiction.
JoVE – I think the key to coping with the lack of a source of advice is recognizing that learning sometimes involves making mistakes. In their own way, mistakes are every bit as valuable to us as successes. The wonderful thing in the current time is that internet has a wealth of knowledge and advice (and friends) within the reach of our fingertips :)
— Ron · Jun 24, 11:21 PM · #