Demonstrating

[altivo]

So, as mentioned yesterday, I spent a full 8 hour day demonstrating handspinning at a historical site over in McHenry. The place is a pioneer farm that dates to the late 1830s, and still has the original house and barn intact. This was the first year for their big event, and I give credit to the organizers (who were apparently most of them in their 70s) for getting out excellent publicity and getting in a good crew of demonstrators. It was of course a "family" event with lots of parents towing kids around to see the demonstrations of everything from milking cows to sewing quilts. There were turkeys, chickens, alpacas, sheep, and cows to look at. I don't think there were any horses (pity.) There were tractors, both old and new. There were food concessions (of course) and presentations on 19th century life, with lots of people in historic costumes. They had an excellent turnout, with a gate count of 800 by noon and 1500 by the time they closed down at 4 pm.

I spun continuously, first wool on a drop spindle, and then cotton on a wheel, with only a half hour break for lunch (which was provided by the organizers as prepared box lunches distributed to the volunteer demonstrators.) I explained what I was doing again and again (not my strong point) until I was losing my voice.

I'm very impressed with the organizers and volunteers, and pleased to say that the weather behaved except for one quick shower and a burst of wind. However, once again I came away utterly unimpressed with Americans' attitudes and awareness. As I've been saying for years, people are so isolated now from the sources of their food and clothing that they are absolutely clueless about how this stuff comes to exist, or that people have to do things to make it happen. The actual process befuddles them. The sequence of steps from raw cotton or wool to finished clothing are a total mystery to them. They simply have no idea, and in most cases seem never to have thought of it at all. Most children have the attention spans of monkeys, and can stare at you without even seeing you while their mental wheels seem to be only processing on when the ice cream is coming or how soon they get to ride the tractor. Adults, though, are just scary.

They will ask what you're doing. You explain that you are making yarn that can be knitted into clothing or woven into cloth (and there are weavers working under the next canopy over, so they can see that happening. You see this look of disbelief cross their faces. Then they either humor you, or ask the obvious (to them) question: "Why would you do that when you can just buy yarn, or better yet, clothing?" The notion that throughout 99% of humankind's existence, there was no Wal-Mart store seems to be beyond their grasp. They gape at the spinning wheel (a modern manufactured one) and then ask how old it is and where you got it. You explain that it's only eight years old and was made in New Zealand (or Canada) and they shake their heads. "I had no idea anyone made such things any more." They ask where the wool or cotton came from, and don't seem to be able to understand the answer. "But didn't you have to kill the sheep?" The wool is gray and they can't believe there are gray sheep. "I thought they were all white or else black."

Cotton is the most puzzling to them, despite the fact that it is such a significant element in U.S. history. They have no idea how it grows, or that it had to be picked by hand and "seeded" before it could be prepared for spinning. Or else you tell them it's cotton you're spinning and they persist in thinking you bought it from the bandage department at the pharmacy.

Older people (generally those over about 50 years of age) are better. They have some idea of the process by which finished goods arrive in their hands, even if they have never performed the steps personally. The under 30 set, though, are absolutely ignorant. They have no idea about anything, though I'm sure most of them could tell me all the shows they will watch on television this evening. The idea that spinning is one step in a longer process from raw fiber to finished clothing seems incomprehensible to them. The fact that the spinning wheel doesn't do it automatically, and the spinner must exercise acquired skills, is hard for them to grasp too. They say "It looks so easy" or "It looks so tedious" (it is neither, but there's no point in arguing) and I point out that I've been doing it for 20 years now, so I have a fairly practiced hand. This, of course, produces more astonishment. How could anyone make the effort to learn something that takes that long?

I'm truly afraid that our educational system has completely failed, and that our society is within a tiny pinprick of collapse. If the oil dries up, or becomes too expensive, huge numbers of people are going to be totally helpless and will die because they don't know how to get raw food and prepare it, or how to make or even repair clothing for themselves.

Comments

[loriana.livejournal.com]

You are so right... on so many levels...
...sad...

[cozycabbage.livejournal.com]

Just ask Atomicat about the american education system. There's a book (I think the author's name is John Gatto or somesuch) where they go into detail, and the education system is basically a generator of willing slaves. As the saying goes, "Someone has to pump your gas!"

Actually, I wouldn't mind self-serve gas, if it meant everyone had university degrees.

[silver-kiden.livejournal.com]

1) shear the sheep
2) card the wool
3) spin the rolags of wool into yarn
4) dye the yarn (optional)
5) use the yarn.

really, it's not all the complicated, just time consuming :p just don't ask me to try to do it, i'd likely injure myself trying! :p

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The scary part is that my complaints apply to our leaders and politicians just as much as to the drones. It's fortunately not universal. (Obviously, you don't suffer from this kind of ignorance for example.) But remember when George H. Bush revealed that he was so out of touch with reality that he had never seen a supermarket scanner?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Self serve gas is all you can get down here anyway. Unless you eat at McDonald's, in which case you get all kinds of gas everywhere.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

No risk of injury except at the shearing stage. I've still got a sore muscle in my arm from wrestling sheep for shearing three weeks ago.

I'm not surprised that you have some grasp of the process. But then, I know you read books too, which makes you exceptional these days.

[silver-kiden.livejournal.com]

why, thank you. i think. :p surprisingly, most of what i know about it is from young adults books (circle of magic by tamora pierce.) one of my no-thought-easy-read authors. they usually help me relax. of course, i tend to read those while at the same time reading something like LOTR or wheel of time, but they are still good. if you haven't read them, i recommend it, or at least pointing kids towards them :p

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Whinnyhi, Rider.

The weirdest thing is. As I get older and having some heart health problems lately (have to go to the VA hospital in Ann Arbor next according to the doctors there is something wrong with my heart stress test they will not tell me yet) I think about death.

So here I am a very smart, worldly and well-educated person who is gonna die and be gone forever one of these days. I do not fear death nor do I worry much about it but it kinda bugs me that when I go, along with goes all the knowledge I possess. INCLUDING a LOT about how things are made and history and stuff like that. So further the human race gets away from the basics. I think about that, how and when older people who actually know how to use a lathe properly, or how to spin wool into yarn and weave into cloth, how as we depart the world, we also take with us that knowledge.

Glad there are others out there who are kinda like me in that regard.

Love ya.

Imperator

[dogteam.livejournal.com]

That's very sad. I guess I'm not surprised. I've written about the "disconnect" before, and I guess it's gotten worse. Most people eat food that they didn't kill, live in houses they didn't build...myself included, for the most part, though I can and do hunt for food, and could probably build a house in a pinch. Spin wool? Mm...unlikely, but I could learn.
So many skills are falling by the wayside. Most alarming to me here is the disappearance of the family farm. Even those that are still trying find it hard to get help...a vet friend told me yesterday that no one wants to work on large animals anymore. She got a call the other day from someone in Hay River to look at a down cow. That's a couple of thousand kilometers from here; it would have cost more for the vet call than the cow was worth.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

I guess nobody watches the History Channel. I believe Modern Marvels has done several episodes on cotton, wool, and spinning/weaving.

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

Ahh ha! But remember, the History Channel is TV. And we all know how factual anything shown on TV these days is...

(/sarcasm)

[silver-kiden.livejournal.com]

hey, you'll only be about fourty minutes northeast of me. cool. hope everything turns out alright!

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

Considering how much knowledge comes from just plain old osmosis I guess from this we can deduce that the only movies these kids watch contain nothing but guns and cars.

[luperion.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered, if people were genuinely educated (not the tripe they try to pass for education today) and could choose any job they wanted, what would happen to the Wal-Marts and the McDonalds of the world?

Indeed, who would pump our gas, if it were not automated? (Actually here in Australia there is no longer any such thing as service - it's self serve, you pump your own gas and then go in and pay for it).

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

I feel exactly the same way. I'd love to be a teacher in the old and proper way that the world used to use... get a bunch of curious kids together with a know-it-all (who's hopefully got his ego under control! :D) and just explore.

One of the most depressing things I run across constantly is the inability to just try things! In the fursuit community there's a constant stream of questions that could be answered with five minutes of trying! Experiment! Check it out! Everyone needs a guide, everyone needs to be told or shown the proper way to do things.

Add in the fear of failure that the grading system leaves us. I had this exchange last summer (MSN)...

"I just made an absolutely wicked t-shirt! Great iron-on, check it out... "Space Rats in Leather" Cool eh?"
"Cool! I wish I could do that."
"Well just do it! Print out a pic on iron-on transfer paper and have at it."
"I'd be afraid to fuck it up."
"Um.... well so what... so did I the first few times..."
"No.... I could never do that..."

Never could talk him into just TRYING it. *sigh*

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

I've wondered about this a lot myself as I can understand actually why the industrialists set up the education system to actually dumb people down. This is also happens in a different way in an old classic I'm re-reading right now, "Brain Wave" by Gordon Dickson. To skip the explanation, insert device to boost the intelligence of everything on earth (animals too, way cool!), insert major chaos of course.

HOWEVER... When the story on E8 symmetry broke I was browsing some of the physics forums and I noticed that a lot of these people who were casually tossing around mad level physics and math had extremely mindless and repetitive jobs, forklift operators, mail-sorters, assembly-line workers. They loved these jobs because not only did they get paid fairly well for work most people rightfully (or so? we'll see!) considered too monotonous and boring but these jobs were so monotonous and boring that (and you can see where this is going) they could spend all of their time just thinking about math/physics problems. E8 symmetry was cracked by a surfer-dude/snow-board instructor of course. (It's all like, waves man! :D)

So it's true, only stupid people are bored. I used to love spending hours building frames for the bee-hives when I was a kid.

"Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definitions."
—Mentat Text One (decto)

"Intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do."
—Jean Piaget

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Oh, heavens, that sounds quite bad, yes - how can anyone not be aware of things like the fact that no, you don't have to kill sheep to shear their wool? I suppose I should give people credit for at least trying to learn, but goodness...

[vimsig.livejournal.com]

harsh, but fair my man - yes, harsh but very fair!

[plushlover.livejournal.com]

I'm truly afraid that our educational system has completely failed, and that our society is within a tiny pinprick of collapse. If the oil dries up, or becomes too expensive, huge numbers of people are going to be totally helpless and will die because they don't know how to get raw food and prepare it, or how to make or even repair clothing for themselves.

You are quite correct in this assessment. People take all this comfort and convenience entirely for granted, and they have no knowledge whatsoever about where it all comes from. In the face of such pandemic ignorance, it's difficult to have hope for the future, isn't it?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't think when the last time was that I saw a movie in which any of this "boring" process stuff was involved. Hollywood does what sells, and guns and cars sell.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Tamora Pierce is on my "must buy" list for the library any time she has something new that we don't already own.

I confess I've not read any of her books all the way through, but they are generally well-recommended and certainly I approve of the summaries given in the reviews.

I have The Immortals series sitting here, but haven't gotten into it to read it all.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We know that you and I have some significant things in common, that's for sure.

Now you've got me worried. I trust you will go for that consultation and find out what it's about.

Love,
Rider

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I was in pre-vet (dare I say it?) 40 years ago. Even then, at a major agricultural university, there was little interest in large animal practice. I believe they were already having difficulty getting instructors for those courses. Though I was'nt from a farm background myself, I had plans to go into large animals. It didn't work out that way, but it wasn't for lack of interest or academics.

"Disconnect" is the best word I can come up with to describe this phenomenon. While I remember my grandparents complaining about a lot of things they saw wrong with the younger generations, at least that wasn't one of them. I can just imagine what my grandmother would have to say about this. She was an extremely capable and independent woman who had been a farmer, a butcher, a restaurant cook, and many other things in her life, as well as a homemaker who raised three children of her own and helped raise and educate other people's children. I don't know that she could actually spin herself, but I do know she was aware of the process and its place in the overall scheme. She sewed and knitted clothing, and had raised sheep at one time.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Compared to the number of people who watch those stupid "reality" shows, you're right. Nobody watches the educational stuff.

I don't demand that everyone know how to do all this stuff. But especially in the face of a potential economic collapse, which I think is imminent now, it seems disastrous that so many people are utterly ignorant. I may not know how to overhaul a vehicle engine myself, but at least I'm aware of the general way in which it works and what might be involved. It isn't a magic box with secrets inside. That's what all of life is to so many of these people. The necessities of life just appear by magic in the store for them, and if they suddenly become unavailable for any reason, they will be utterly at a loss to survive.

Some of this was expressed by those who expected a collapse due to Y2K bugs in computer software, though of course it didn't happen. However, I see no way around a major worldwide depression and possibly widespread warfare and anarchy as the oil supply simply dries up. And it is going to dry up. We can argue about when, but there's no arguing about whether it will happen. Right now all the energy is being focused on finding more oil rather than on finding other ways to produce the energy we depend on.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, being educated still doesn't mean you can choose any occupation you want. At least not in my experience. You are right though that the shape of our educational systems has been altered by the pressure of the corporate job market, and in the US at least has been "tuned" to providing "trained workers" rather than people who can see through the bullshit and become critical of what they are being ordered to do.