Jan. 16, 2005 - 23:57 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

De-education

Very late tonight, however I was thinking over something I saw in Jen Wade's bulletin board in her, "None Of The Above" a bit about something said in Tim Blair's Blog of Nov. 30, 2004. I think it can be read by going to her board here. Jen Wade

In his blog some things are mentioned that I did as a kid, some I have seen done when I was a kid, and some I probably would have tried if I had thought of it.

But what directed my line of thought was, why aren't parents, teachers and legislators trying to teach youngsters to learn common sense by practical experience ? Why aren't they trying to get children thinking on their own ?

It is not in my memory, but I was told by parents that I was once slightly burned on the stove. Thereafter when I came close to something hot my watchword was , "Burnie burnie." I don't remember that, but do remember avoiding something hot because I know touching it would burn me.

There are so many lessons that we learned as children that led us to avoid doing something harmful to ourselves or others. We weren't taught these things in class, nor were we sat on a chair and lectured by our parents. We actually did think about consequences before we attempted things that adults would automatically frown upon.

And when tempted to do some "damn-fool" thing, I was well aware of what the consequences could be if I miscalculated somewhere along the line, knew where I could end up, for how long (approximately) and took care that no other person was in danger -- except some one as foolhardy as I.

But along the way, it seems, that schools, businesses and goverment instituted rules, regulations and laws in an effort to protect a very few people who would probably end up hurting themselves or others by violating some practicality of common sense which is not covered by anything.

Although for the most part, I like some of the things OSHA has done, some of them are along the line of keeping idiots from hurting themselves or someone else. One instance is them cutting shop air pressure down from 100 psi to 40 psi. Making it pretty well impossible to blow chips or drill shavings out of holes in machining work. There are many other cases where 100 psi air is needed. But, you know, some stupid person, lacking any common sense, might use 100 psi air to blow chips -- while looking down the hole.

We were taught in shop how to use a push stick or whatever to get a board through a tablesaw and such other common sense things. Now some of the safety devices make it so time consuming that an operator is in danger of committing suicide from sheer frustration and impatience, knowing that with commonsense and care those things are not needed.

So I wonder, in all these regulations and laws in existence are we preventing our children from gaining any common sense ? This appears to be a grand process of De-education . . . . . . . . .

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