Preparedness for when

Butterfly_Brain

mardatha wrote: »

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OI! HE'S TAKEN!

:rotfl::rotfl:

grandma247

Interesting discussion on education today.

I have home educated for more than twenty years and taught my two youngest to read at age three and a half and four and a half. They were both fluent readers by age six and could pick up anything and read it.

It was proved some years ago that poor families in India and Africa fared better when the mother was taught to read.

I always felt that learning to read was like the opening of a large door Once it is opened you are only limited by your own abilities as to what you can do.

[Deleted User]

ALI I feel like I'm on the edge watching everyone else jump off!!! We are the few folks who I'm certain will fare better than most in the future, we as a collective have more common sense and coping strategies than most of the population. I think It's because we have our feet very firmly in the real world and our heads attached very firmly to our shoulders, not in the pink clouds or a bucket of sand. Life will be less comfortable, less affluent, less safe if you like but we have the skills and ability to make the very best that can be made from any given situation, none of us are immune from the woes of the world, but by golly, it won't get the better of us and we'll thrive by helping and supporting each other!!!!! Lyn xxx.

JayneC

This is an interesting, if controversial take on the education system
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEWPbTad_Q
John Holt has a similar take.
I think schools are so governed by the curriculum now there's no time to teach. If kids haven't grasped the concept in the allotted time too bad, we're moving on anyway, seems to be the attitude.
I had a brief stint Home Educating my youngest. I'd always been interested but didn't have confidence in myself. However youngest has always struggled with school and eventually I decided enough was enough and took him out. However he was 13 nearly 14 and he missed his friends much more than he thought he would and decided to return after one term. I think he was also a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of having to motivate himself to get through GCSEs too. Anyway he went back and now he's much more motivated, so I think it was worth it.
My eldest 2 were appalling at spelling and I insisted my eldest go to the spelling support group at school, where she was enlisted as a 'helper'??? WT*?? She finally taught herself to spell when part of her job entailed formatting and proofreading presentation slides for the company she worked for. And this was a child who was moved up every term when she started school, so that she had to spend 2 years in the same class when she got to juniors:eek:

GreyQueen

Yeah, ALIBOBSY, people's expectations are so much higher now than they were 2-3 generations ago (depending on the age of the reader). I'm not necessarily arguing that as being a bad thing, either; a lot of working people were a lot poorer than they needed to be, because of the actions of their employers.

In my family's oral history there are memories of when the farmer wouldn't pay the labourers an extra penny piece a week (which would have bought a bit more bread and staved off the hunger). Not because they couldn't afford it, but because they didn't have to pay it and didn't regard paying a living wage as a moral duty. But they'd be up the front of the church on Sunday and counted themselves good Christian men........

Life for ordinary people used to be incredibly spartan as recently as 50-60 years ago, something which I think a lot of modern people don't understand. Unless you have anecdotage from your relatives or other older people, or have an interest in social history, you might think that life as it is lived now is how it has always been and how it will always be.

I read enough of the peak oil blogosphere to know that the lifestyle of people being born today is going to be very different from my lifestyle, which is itself very different from that of my grandparents and great-grandparents. We are living high on fossil fuels and they're running out. I hope to goodness it doesn't suddenly end due to terrorism (pace Last Light and Afterlight by Alex Scarrow) but a slow decline over decades as we head towards the end of the twenty-first century is inevitable.

As we lurch and bump down the far side of the Hubbert Peak, as it's called, you will see a car going from a commonplace item in most households to a rich person's toy. You'll have grandparents mystifying their grandchildren with tales of going travelling to far-off places on a whim and a shoestring budget. We might hold items made of non-recyclable materials in awe or disdain. Landfill-mining might easily be a new extractive industry. Families will probably be doubling or tripling up in what were once single-family homes to save money.

We'll have less, materially; less freedom to use valuable materials/ fuels for frivilous purposes. Fewer choices about what we do and where we go. Fewer material items altogether, and having to extend the economic life of what we do have with repairs and retro-fitting existing items to new purposes.

Will these limitations make us any unhappier? Maybe, particularly for those who personally go from ease to considerable hardship in one generation. Some people may become very bitter that they can't provide as much for their children as was provided for them. Some other people might find that a simpler life is a rewarding one, and that challenges met and overcome develop character and self-reliance.

Warmth and a fully belly, dear family and friends nearby, are as real whether you're in a luxe family home or around a cottage fire. You only gain brief happiness from new toys, whether you're a child or an adult. But love, companionship, humour, accomplishments, these are the things which sustain you.

[Deleted User]

Good post GQ thank you. I think we all have to learn the real difference between wanting and needing for life in the future. I am old enough to remember having 1 pair of shoes until I grew out of them or they wore out and couldn't be repaired any more. I can remember them being patched with a cardboard innersole cut from a cornflake packet when we were really hard up. I can remember collecting lemonade bottles with my baby brother for the 3d deposit because there was no food indoors and we would go to the chippy and buy 3d worth of the bits of batter left in the fryer after the fish had been cooked. New clothes? the only new wclothes I can remember were my senior school uniform the rest were home made or hand me downs from family friends or the jumble sale - and where is the problem in that I ask? It's just not what we're used to these days, but it's been perfectly acceptable in the not too distant past and I suspect will be the norm in years to come. We never went out for meals, certainly not to restaurants, occasionally Sunday Tea with a family friend or a school friends birthday party. Never to the pub and the only take aways were fish and chips once in a very blue moon again where is the problem in that? We had a sound roof over our heads, we had (mostly) enough to eat, we had a warm coat, we had (mostly) a pair of shoes that kept our feet dry and we had a fire to keep warm by. We very rarely left the village, didn't have a car (my Dad cycled 15 miles to work and 15 miles back every day) didn't have a fridge, didn't have holidays the most we had was a weekly runaround ticket on the railways and if we were really lucky got a day at the seaside once a year. We lacked nothing, we were perfectly content with our lives and we were happy, I wonder how many people can genuinely say that today??? Food for thought? Cheers Lyn xxx.

Margaret54

Very good posts Mrs Lurcherwalker and Greyqueen. Thought provoking too.

2tonsils

Has anyone on here had experience of MRI scans, particularly where they inject dye before the image is done? Thanks...just heard some scary reports and I am due to go for one on my shoulder and upper arm soon!

GreyQueen

2tonsils wrote: »

Has anyone on here had experience of MRI scans, particularly where they inject dye before the image is done? Thanks...just heard some scary reports and I am due to go for one on my shoulder and upper arm soon!

Please don't distress yourself over this.

I have had many MRI scans, inc multiple scans in a single session and one of which included the dye injection.

All I felt was a very faint sensation of "warmth" as the dye went into my arm, like a localised hot flush. It lasted a few seconds and had no other effects whatsover. Once I'd dressed again, I had a cuppa from my flask in the hospital carpark then drove 30 miles home alone on the main roads. No problems.

westcoastscot

Hi 2T, I've had two MRI's recently,and I declined the dye as we have a family history of allergies and the dye is not guaranteed safe for us.The results were still viable.

GQ and Mrs LW excellent posts. I read a book recently- personal accounts from the Depression in the US, a really interesting book and I can see many parallels between then and now. I really think life is going to get harder before it gets easier, and I do think the shape of our lives will have to change - whatever we think about the economy and how we got where we are we have to deal with it now don't we?

I have personal concerns as I am almost solvent from my divorce - it's been a really hard ten years but i'm almost there financially. So long as I keep my job i'll be fine, I just need another year of personal prosperity and i'm set, but potential problems seem to be queuing at my door!