Most of what I write about is important to me, but there are precious few subjects that can raise the hair on my arms and send a chill up my back. I was blessed (or cursed, perhaps) with intellectual curiosity. Put me in the presence of worthwhile knowledge and I'm drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

I've always been one of the impatient, give-it-to-me-and-get-out-of-the-way learners... hated sitting in class and when forced to, did the routine to an acceptable, average level while my mind was elsewhere, studying something else. Given my test scores, that left me always as an "underachiever". Everyone knew I could have (should have?) been getting A's, but I couldn't see a reason to do it. I could get all of the worthwhile information without doing the mundane stuff required to get better grades. The difference between a C and an A was grunt work to satisfy someone else, not to increase knowledge. Frankly, I didn't care whether the teacher knew what I knew.

I was fortunate to have attended two antique one-room country schools... one teacher for 10 to 20 students spanning up to 9 grade levels. I have to tell you that, in some ways, those were the "richest" classroom experiences I've had as a student. I could do my work while overhearing the teacher instructing kids in other grades. I could help younger kids with their studies... and that's when I learned that the best way to really learn subject matter is to try to teach it to someone else.

At that time, teachers had 2-year college certificates and enough moxey to handle a roomful of mixed-age kids. .They weren't brilliant, or well educated, or well-paid, but they were highly respected members of the community. Many of these kids were from farm families, and sending kids to school instead of having them at home working meant that our parents VALUED education... more than the extra work they had to do to free us for school. For those kids, school was like a daily vacation from work.

If you came out of such schools unable to read well, spell well, write decently, or understand arithmetic, you had to have some mental deficiency, because we worked at those basics... they were GAMES to us... we competed with each other, and we were quite proud to get a good grade. In that setting, learning was a virtue.

Then I got into high school... a typical, tiny Iowa (80 students in 4 grades) basic "public" school. That's when I first experienced the typical "classroom"... sitting quietly in rows while one teacher taught from the front of the room. The idea that a typical 12-year-old boy can absorb knowledge in that setting is ludicrous, but we're still trying to do it today. It's like driving a car that's designed for maximum gas mileage... no matter how hard you push it, it's going to poke along. Eventually, you settle into some kind of half-dead mode and resign yourself to the pokey pace. Not insignificantly, you may find yourself doing some radical driving maneuvers just to hear the tires squeal, to reassure yourself that you're not driving a hearse. Similarly, the young lads in class are most likely to "act up" because they just MUST.

Finally graduating from high school with a no-study C average, I went off to college, where I experienced MORE, and bigger classrooms, where most of the instructors were little more than unknown, impersonal talking heads. Most of the freshman year was dedicated to repeating what we were supposed to have learned in high school. I muddled through about 3 years of college, changing schools once, and changing majors once, learning occasionally, working menial jobs, and partying too much. In 3 years at a major university, this knowledge-hungry mind found very little of value to tap into, and, like so many other impatient souls, I dropped out... and enlisted in the Navy. Not too long into the Navy, I organized a small group of sailors into our own school... and we studied a little philosophy until transfers broke the group apart.

After 4 years of Navy, I went back to college in summer school and found that summer is by far the best time to learn in college. Talking heads are replaced by graduate assistants who are still excited about their subject matter, and each class included adult teachers back for more, and a variety of odd people like me. My GPA for the summer was 3.4 (4 point system), as compared with a .5 the semester before I dropped out (yes, you read that right... "point" 5... aka half a point).

My next escapade into learning was a brand-new one-year Tech school for the new field of data processing... computers. This was practical, state-of-the-art, useful, hands-on learning, and I studied more during that year than in the previous seven years of high school and college, because I wanted to. After graduating, I was offered a job teaching at the school, but I wanted to go "set the world on fire" with my new knowledge.

After a few months of working experience, I was offered a position at Iowa Testing, the home of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and pretty much the origin of all standardized testing. That was near the beginning of the computerization of testing... using electromechanical scanners to read responses, and then analyzing the results by computer. Prior to that time, it had all been done by hand.

For the next 10 years, my skills were in great demand, and I worked closely with schools in many ways... designing test analysis systems, and providing administrative systems for many of the Twin Cities suburban schools. My personal "calling" during that time was to help schools become more effective using computers... to simplify the grunt work of education... to help schools concentrate on educating, rather than scheduling classes, grading tests, doing report cards, keeping attendance... to automate the mundane tasks so that they could do the important work of helping students learn.

By the mid-70's, I was an expensive, over-qualified "expert" no longer employable during a recession, and I became an artist... naturally doing educational materials. Eventually, with the advent of the personal computer, I found a new love and calling, becoming an early PC specialist, and did quite a bit of teaching to a variety of adults who found themselves with a PC and a stack of poor manuals.

I made a number of discoveries during that period of teaching, one being that teaching is just plain hard work. I became acutely aware that each group of students contained a few I could never teach fast enough to challenge, and others I just couldn't slow down quite enough for. There were a few who were there just to get a passing grade for graduation, and others who just couldn't wait to apply their new knowledge.

Before even applying for those teaching jobs, I had learned the subject matter on my own, and created my own teaching materials... my own textbook, which was reproduced by each of the half-dozen schools I taught at. Creating those materials forced me to learn the subject matter thoroughly.  What made me work so hard at teaching those subjects was that most of the students were there because they wanted to be, and they wanted the knowledge and skills. I understood that want, and responded with every skill I had at my disposal, and every effort I could muster.

The amount of real learning that can take place in an ideal environment such as that is phenomenal. It was learning the way I always wanted it as a student, and I was the one doing the teaching.

I now had personal proof that learning could be fun and exciting, even in a classroom. It was great, BUT... it spoiled me. Once I found that I could engage and excite 25 people in a classroom, I could never again have any patience for what normally passes itself off as "education".

Remember... this teacher was a college dropout, self-taught in the subject matter, completely unqualified by what we call "standards", bolstered only by a passion for learning and an obvious hunger from the students.

I hope that, sometime in your life, you've experienced the excitement, the thrill, of learning. I know that many people have not, and I've learned from long experience that to experience it in the 12 or 13 years of mandatory government schooling we're all forced into is RARE. It does happen. Every good teacher has had special moments, had special students, and has made a breakthrough here and there, but so often their efforts are frustrated by a SYSTEM that prevents them from doing what they know they can do... help kids learn.

If you've raised children of your own, you undoubtedly know what an amazing process their learning is... what little sponges they are for knowledge. They want to learn... they NEED to learn... they can't help learning... they don't really even have to be taught... if you leave them alone, they're still going to learn. If you assist them... allow them... they'll suck knowledge up like so much candy, and swell with pride. It's a truly glorious thing to watch.

If you've watched little kids go off to kindergarten, and then over the years gradually LOSE that hunger for learning, in the very places designed to help them learn, then you will understand why the continuation of this blog is going to be critical of our "educational" system. The system deserves such criticism, and the time is overdue to put an end to sacrificing our children on the alter of government schools.