Learn and teach
My friend Mari is working on posting more in her thingie (that’s what she calls it…get your mind out of the gutter!) by answering the Vox question of the day. Today’s question was:
What are three things you want to learn, and three things you can teach others to do?
This is one of the great things about America (she said, cleverly sneaking in a Patriot’s Journey post) — you can learn just about anything you want to. In many countries, your ability to learn any particular thing depends on your gender, your caste level, your geographic location, your financial status, your family connections, and many other limitations that can’t be easily overcome. However, most of an American’s success or failure depends on hard work, recognizing and availing themselves of opportunities (or creating their own opportunities, if necessary!), determination, and perseverance. Almost every practical thing I’ve ever learned how to do was a result of teaching myself from a book, or finding a person willing to teach it to me.
So here are my answers — I would like to learn how to:
1. Hang-glide
2. Refinish wood (specifically my 62-year-old heirloom Lane cedar chest)
3. De-clutter my house efficiently
I am able to teach:
1. Crocheting
2. Excellent cleaning of just about anything
3. Reading (I taught both my girls)
So what do you want to learn, and what do you have to teach?
June 27th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I would like to learn how to:
1. Fly an airplane.
2. Keep a plant alive. (I’ve been known to kill plastic plants - no green thumb here, nosirree!)
3. Speak a foreign language or three.
I am able to teach just about anything I’ve ever done, and I’m on my fifth career, with a miscellaneous listing of “starter” jobs (newspaper carrier, grocery bagger, video arcade attendant, busboy/dishwasher, telemarketer, etc.) and all the crap that a latchkey kid/bachelor had to learn how to do for himself (cook adequately, clean efficiently, etc.)
I try to live up to Heinlein’s description of a human being… “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
June 27th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I would like to learn how to:
Command a square-rigger tall ship adequate to round the Cape of Good Hope.
Hang-glide.
Leadlight. (Making stained glass windows)
I can teach:
Basic wilderness first aid.
Cooking.
Tracking.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:57 am
I like this one. It brings to mind some stuff that Bill Whittle (http://www.ejectejecteject.com/) has been working on.
I can teach basic auto maintenance, life skills like first aid, cooking, basic survival in the wilderness, home repair and maintenance. I can teach computer operation and maintenance. Like Drumwaster says- I’m a fairly competent being along Heinlein’s non-specialist lines.
In fact, I have done or do teach all of these things. All one ever has to do is ask.
Things I want to learn: Well, I am learning to fly an airplane. Since I have zero opprtunity to get behind the stick right now (I took a lesson before I left for Iraq this time) I am reading up on everything I will need to know to pass my written exam, and some theory so that I have a solid grasp of what the instructor is trying to tell me, and I will be doing some simulator work when the equipment gets here. I don’t like to sit on my hands when it comes to something I want to do.
Most of the things I want to ‘learn’ have to do with a greater goal of something I want to “do”. I pretty much always explicitly and implictly include the learning in the doing. I will go skydiving again and learn to do it on my own.
I want to build my own airplane- lots of learning involved there.
I started buying furnishings to use in my Irish pub this week. They will go into storage for now, but when I get home, that will be my next major undertaking. I think I need to get in touch with Molly and talk to her about that. I need some ‘management team’ resumes as part of my business plan and materials.
The pub will be a full service restaurant, not just a drinking establishment. Gonna need not only a good cook, but one who has been trained to run a commerical kitchen. I have worked as a commerical cook, but not as a Chef, designing menus etc. I will need good, trustworthy people around me. Especially since I don’t plan to give up working in IT- the day job just pays too well and I enjoy it.
June 28th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I can teach sailing, gardening and cooking. Eek, a commercial kitchen. The Food Network’s been buggin’ me of late. Am also good at teaching dogs and cats to mind their p’s and q’s. Once back from Seattle in August am hoping to work at Rose City Veterinary. Video cameras, no problem, photo shoots, a breeze.
Have a flown a few planes, great fun. Don’t know why the roads up there are paved yet.