future education

[lonewolf]

I suppose that's a modern way of looking at it, I just believe life will be more basic and more hands on stuff will be needed rather than reading and writing.

[junmist]

If you look back in history as well as in todays third world country's there was/is nothing more important than education after food, Children would and still do travel miles to get to anyone who would teach them to read, write and do maths even if that means starting the day early to get chores done and going to bed late. Even uneducated people understood that and will try to better themselves.
As for travellers 98% go to school until they are 11 which means that they can read, write and do maths so that knocks that myth on the head, travellers (most properly the most pepping community in this country) just understand that is really all you need to know and anything else that you learn at school is just not relevant to their life style .

[cpslashm]

There are things which we will need to know most days and things which may not be needed for a generation or two, when the only people with the skills have long gone. E.g. boat building or constructing a house from scratch - either of which can kill if not done properly.

Books are time machines. They can retain prescriptive knowledge and training for generations, until it is needed.

[grenfell]

I can't for the life of me understand why any literate person who has survived would not consider teaching the next generation to read and write

[cpslashm]

OK, I confess. All my texts are grammatically correct. I just don't get text speak.

I am already functionally illiterate...

[FEISTY]

I suppose that's a modern way of looking at it, I just believe life will be more basic and more hands on stuff will be needed rather than reading and writing.

I find that quite sad. If the first generation alive after TSHTF don't exploit every opportunity to gather and pass on every piece of information still available to them, they will lose it. You, my friend, will consign the generation after you to an even worse existence than just after the event, because you will have deemed education unimportant. Just who do you think came up with all the skills you now have. Just who do you think passed on that information to you/us. We are learning how to do many of the things the modern world deems unnecessary (eg making a fire without matches) because there is a tonne of information on the internet. Without those people having written down all of this information, I, for one, would be absolutely stuffed. If you look at groups of people who live hand to mouth, they tell/show each other everything they know, but they also strive for education, because they know it's their leg up in life and a chance to live in a civilised way instead of in the dirt. I have taught basic education on a voluntary basis and my experience show me that, quite often, the people who couldn't be bothered at school generally didn't bother as adults either (the initial wish to learn to read was there, but they didn't back it up with doing any homework - deja vu). Almost without exception, those people were in low-paid jobs, if in jobs at all. They were of less use as citizens and workers. They hadn't learned the work ethic at school, to just get on with doing things they weren't keen on and to play nice with people they didn't really like all that much in a spirit of co-operation. It was almost as if their emotional education was stunted too. We've been fortunate to learn from literature all our lives - everything from fairy tales (dark tales informing us who to trust and who not to trust), romance novels (wait for the right guy - don't just marry the first schmuck who asks), autobiographies (this is how I mucked up my life - don't do that), cookery books (self-explanatory), DIY manuals (self-explanatory) to even struggling quite a bit of the way through the Stephen Hawking tome (did it make me a better person? - not sure, but someone asked me out on the basis of seeing me reading it ). You will find that the Government will have secreted away a copy of every book deemed of worth and probably a lot more besides because they know the value of them. People, as soon as they have their basic needs met, look to expand upon their lives. Not many people will be happy to continue indefinitely making fire with a flint. Every single person who has found this site is hungry for education too and in order to be able to access the input of hundreds, if not thousands, of like-minded people, you have to be able to read .

[jansman]

Very well put.

A few years ago I read 'Lucifers Hammer' and in it a principal character stashed as many books in waterproofing in a drain I believe. He knew full well that the knowledge contained would be needed later. Indeed it was, in particular medical books.

[PreppingPingu]

Spot on Feisty!

[lonewolf]

yes, but that's a modern way of looking at it. I think that any future generation post SHTF will have different objective's and goals, we will have a more agricultural and agrarian society, and things will all have a different aspect. we may have to go back several centuries in order to start again and schooling will be a long way down the set of requirements. it will be all hands to the tiller or more accurately the harvest, and child labour will be needed if everyone is to be fed, housed and watered. in fact everyone will have to work in the new society, there will be no idle hands, unemployment will be a thing of the past. don't make the mistake of thinking any society POST SHTF will be the same as it was pre SHTF. teaching will be by showing, and it will be "life skills" not the 3R's.

[cpslashm]

I've been digging. Slow, hard work. To do it to a whole field in a single year is unthinkable. Machines give us the ability to produce surplus with our efforts in order to survive hard times. What must be preserved is not only how to make machines and methods of utilising sustainable energy supplies but also the dire consequences of blowing everything on short-term gratification.

People forget. Books don't.