How do we learn? First, let’s think about the mechanics, painters, plumbers, welders, fabricators, carpenters, woodworkers, electricians, and numerous bootstrap fixers of things who could identify and resolve issues by sight, sound, or smell.
Many of us grew up around these women and men. Much of what we learned came from them. They taught me a lot and influenced my methods by listening and observing their every move.
Their stories were meant to teach and remind all of us to pay attention and in the face of rejection, never give up.
They provided subtle insights and unconventional solutions to problems that had to be solved by hook or crook, without the proper tools, or as they were admonished – by their bootstraps.
Story #5: Learning Dangerous Things
Is training in a vocation venerable? Is it on par with a formal course of study that’s part of an educational system? Yes, I strongly believe so. I believe that any vocation promotes humanity and is indeed life-giving.
There are forces on the planet that determine who lives and who dies. It saddens me when I enter a home and find no books, no bookcase, and no interest in extending learning beyond that which is taught in the classroom. That’s suicide by ignorance!
What is being taught in the classroom? The thing being taught is that:
- life is important, but not yours or your people,
- education is important, but not for you or your people,
- heroes are to be worshipped and remembered, but not for you or your people,
And that books are important, but not for you or your people.
There is a special grief felt by the children and grandchildren of those who were forbidden to read, forbidden to question or to know. – Alice Walker
In the face of your breakthroughs and achievement, when out-classing, out-smarting, and “out-humanning”, the rules get deleted or changed just for you… and it is not in your favor!
Crucially, in this so-called period of the greatest achievements in the history of humankind, books are banned, information is suppressed or fabricated, gaslighting is a profession, and truth and freedom are nowhere to be found.
A Young Heroine
Despite the fact [that] the white school received free books, none arrived for the blacks.
This teacher was so afraid of losing her job that she would not make any inquiries about the books and the children were sharing the few books some could buy.
This is determination in the face of abuse of power.
Grief need not last a lifetime
I am sad for the loss of knowledge and skills in the manual arts necessary to build, maintain, and grow communities.
Growing food, making clothes and repairing them, making furniture, designing and building houses, cars, appliances, factories and distribution and delivery systems, among many things, must be our focus.
Many homes in our community do not have tools to build or fix anything. This deepens our dependence on the greater community for services we can do ourselves. We are paying for our lack of self-sufficiency.
In this and every other way, we are looked upon as an inordinate source of revenue and fees for governments, the courts, and the prison system.
We pay, often with our lives, for walking or driving, for harmful beauty enhancement products, for designer shoes and clothing, for participating in athletics (price paid on and off the field), for discriminatory medical practices and experimentation.
There is exposure for many of us to a lifetime of excessive and unfair billings, advertising, weapons, inferior food and housing, and a whole lot of other things.
All of that makes it almost impossible to save, invest, or even think about generational wealth.
Learn a little, learn a lot
A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
– Frederick Douglass
Identify a need in the world and in your community, that is your profession.
We can and our children can pick from hundreds of fields that sustain economic, moral, psychological, spiritual, corporeal well-being and freedom of our families, communities and, ultimately, the planet.
And we can create our own… new ones. That is what we need to sustain self-worth and a world universe of possibilities for current and future generations. It promotes a feeling of responsibility to your people.
We can do that.
Two things can be true simultaneously
Reading to learn
For living life and things that are obvious, reading is fundamental.
It is fundamental for filling out a job application, writing grants, interpreting leases, legal rulings, contracts, product inserts, and medical instructions. There are so many things I have not mentioned here that come to mind.
All of them require reading with understanding both the facts and nuances in their meaning. And don’t forget the fine print!
Doing to learn
The reading we do is to learn how to do. Building, maintaining, repairing, that is, doing is the goal. But you can learn by doing, too.
Learning and knowing how to do anything raises self-respect, self-esteem, and self-awareness in an individual. And it raises up the community.
That is how we create our real life heroes and heroines.
The danger indeed is when a woman, man, or child who are bred to be a factotum, slave, prisoner, and treated as a sub human mongrel by the world decides that it is time to quit.
Then, the world takes notice (again), gets agitated (again), makes increasingly authoritarian gestures, scrambles to change the rules, tightens the handcuffs, muzzles the truth and labels actions to get free as threatening and dangerous (again, again, again and again).
Respect in the community
Our community is continually targeted and gets the life squeezed out of it – educationally, economically, and ecologically – both within and without. Yes, within and without.
Let’s stop that and keep walking forward. Remind yourself that the way people see and treat you is their problem, how you respond is yours. Your behavior says everything about you, and their behavior says more than enough about them.
What is true about you is in your hands. Learn that. Be the truth.
Learn one new thing every day:
- George Washington Carver on vocational training vs college,
- Fred Jones, Thermo King and refrigerated trucking,
- Black enslaved women forced to make gunpowder,
- Film: Shut Up and Paint by Titus Kaphar.
That’s four things.
If it cannot or will not be done at school, do it at home.
There couldn’t be a safer way for kids to learn about difficult topics, gain new perspectives, and explore the world and their place in it than by reading words on a page.
– Heather E. Schwartz
And build that bookcase.
Man reading should be intensely alive. The book shall be a ball of light in one’s hand.
– Ezra Pound
Make the choice to live with honor and dignity. Seek the knowledge.
♥️
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Remember: If you are going to make any project, be mindful and be safe.
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Next time: Story #6: transforming a bookshelf to bookcase
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Featured image: Young African American men, training in woodworking, building a stairway in a house built largely by them in Hampton, Virginia, 1899 or 1900, by Francis Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952), Library of Congress.
