Woman control theory

[coquina]

Does Bawdsey ring a bell?

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/restoration/profiles/?15

 

Bawdsey is the place I visited when I went to England. Did your dad do any work there?

 

My dad worked on the Ranger - the first aircraft carrier to have radar.

[Martin]

...

 

My dad worked on the Ranger - the first aircraft carrier to have radar.

 

My wife's dad went to England only once during WW2 and only for a few months-----it was during the bombing of London----wait I think he went on two trips there connected with radar development. But he was (i believe) a fairly junior person in that effort and he was mostly working at some place in New Jersey, for one of the contractors.

 

He had plenty of good stories. passed away a few years back.

 

I never heard of Bawsey. I will ask my wife, but I think that if her father ever visited the radar people there this information has been lost.

 

Exciting times.

 

Americans received more hands-on technical education in those days and there was more real manufacture industry, which creates by its very existence a certain mechanical savvy in the populace

young men would tinker with their cars with the same obsession that they now do video games

more people could build their own houses and add on stuff by themselves

 

the male female issues are secondary, we are seeing a decline in hands-on know-how across the board

and then, as far a females go, we are told that a lot of the warplanes for WW2 were built by women like the famous rosie the riveter (I dont know how true that is, but this is folklore)

 

the old guy was, of course, right in wanting his daughter to learn metalshop. but I do not think the school system caved in to his demands on that occasion

[Coral Rhedd]

Sandi, I love anecdotes. Keep em coming.

 

You are really lucky that your Dad taught you things. In my family, all chores were decided by sex roles. My three brothers took turns mowing the grass once a week and I had to do dishes every night. I grew with an abiding hatred of housework.

 

In high school I did not want to take home ec. I wanted to take woodworking but was not allowed to. When I was in JTPA I tested way up there on spatial and really, really low on clerical skills. I wanted to be a welder because I knew that's where the money was. Guess where they tracked me?

 

* * *

 

Martin, the Rosie thing is real. My father went to war and my mother went to work on the railroad as a telegrapher. She lived way out in the middle of nowhere and when the trains came in she loaded freight. She developed muscles in her forearms that allowed her to defeat my brothers at arm wrestling when they were teenagers.

 

My mother and other women made more money when the men were off to war than many of them would make again in their lives. Twenty years later, my mother made far less as a sales clerk.

 

After WWII there was a big deliberate government propaganda push to get the women back in the house and making babies. The men got GI College Loans and the rest is economic history.

 

The U.S. became the economic power it is today built upon the ashes of WWII.

[coquina]

I was lucky ... that my mom didn't have any boys. I am quite sure that if my dad had a son I wouldn't be where I am now. (He was, in many of his opinions, an oinker to the max.)

 

I took those spatial tests too. All those flattened shapes - one had to tell them what it would look like folded. Aced them. In 1966, the guidance councilor told me that "if I were a man, she would recommend that I go into engineering" she didn't know what the heck to do with me.

 

IMHO - what has to happen is that students should be exposed to hands on jobs early. It's a problem, what with the child labor laws, my insurance could be canceled if I even allowed a young person in the machinery areas.

 

Machines are dangerous - but they are no darned worse than automobiles.

 

Somehow, practicality has to outweigh absurdity.

 

BTW - I used to keep my nails "man-short". I now make a practice of having them professionally done. Not long and dagger-like, but shaped and just a little longer than the ends of my fingers. At the moment, in honor of the holidays, I have gold polish with glitter on top. Usually - I go for the very neutral tones. Regardless, I enjoy showing my hands to someone who thinks "blue collar work" equates to dirt under the fingernails.

 

So many erroneous preconceptions - how do we dispell them???

[Coral Rhedd]

Some young people, the kinesthetic learners, can really only learn well hands on. I am interested in learning styles because these learners were the students I had the most trouble reaching. I found it was best to teach the essay style to them as a series of parts -- good old fashioned outline style. I did an appalling thing. I looked up old ways of teaching writing that are now quite passe. I taught to the exit exam I knew they would have to take, which was heavily based upon critical thinking skills -- my fav. My students did better than the students of teachers who had been teaching much longer. Every single one of them (who did not drop out early) passed.

 

My biggest problem I see now was a certain "lofty" English mindset and the need to trim back my vocabulary. Right out of grad school, I wasn't sure what "role" I was supposed to play and I absolutely the hated the classroom management part of teaching. My attitude was, and still is, "If you are not ready for college, why be here?"

 

Here is an interesting link that touches on twin studies and the brain and how the brain responds to learning. Apparently the brain is quite malleable and twins can diverge in their learning in a use it or lose sort of way.

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/interviews/giedd.html

 

I would extrapolate from this that girls, given very different activities and projected goals than boys would simply develop different skill sets. For instance, I only use my spatial ability recently for putting together some unassembled book shelves (Just try to understand those assembly instructions. Who writes those things?) and for sewing.

 

I've long thought that excessive emphasis upon the first three years of life as the main ones that count for shaping the child's future is nonsense. In very real ways, we simply are what we do.

[coquina]

Regarding neural pathways - my mother was a classically trained pianist and organist. She could remember learning to read but she could not remember learning to play. (Her father was a very accomplished organist who gave recitals all over the British Isles, including Westminster Abby.)

 

Have you ever watched and organist play - one hand going on the top manual, the other on the bottom, and both feet playing the pedals - reaching up to change the stops (the buttons which make the organ sound like an oboe or a trumpet.)?

 

Mother had a very serious stroke, but recovered with only a slight limp. Her neurosurgeon couldn't figure out why her right side wasn't more seriously affected - until I told him about the organ playing. Mother had already trained much more of her brain than most people ever use.

 

When she broke her hip at age 95, they gave her some mental tasks to figure out whether they should attempt to do surgery or just let her remain bedridden - they brought her a tray with 30 items on it - she not only remembered all 30 items, but where each one was placed on the tray.

 

My grandson was having problems with multiplication, and I taught him the same way my dad taught me - by having him arrange blocks in rows.

 

I think one of the hardest things about teaching a classroom is that you don't have time to wait and let kids think things through. When grandson was about 4 he asked me about a nautical chart. I was showing him that the blue represented water, the yellow land and the red lines were roads.

 

Then I showed him a place where a red line crossed from yellow, over blue and back to yellow and asked him what it was. He pondered it for a couple of minutes, then looked up at me with his eyes just shining and said, "It's a bridge, grandma!"

 

I think teaching has suffered, because so much of it involves the teacher at the head of the class sending information out. Even when she asks a question, the child might be able to answer, if he is given enough time and doesn't feel pressure from the other kids in the group. Their brains are like sponges - they have to soak in the information. The teacher can't unscrew the top of their heads and pour it in.

 

One last anecdote about reading. We took our grandson camping with us - he asked me what a sign said - I said - you try to figure it out. I'm going to dump the trash - when I come back, if you still don't know, I'll tell you.

 

When I came back, there was that big grin and flashing blue eyes - when I asked him what the sign said he replied, "Flush water, do not drink." (It was at the sewage pump out station.) He was about 2nd grade, so I thought it was pretty good that he could figure out "flush" and "drink"

[Coral Rhedd]

Sounds like you're a pretty good teacher yourself!

[Ophiolite]

Recognition of a problem is accepted as an important step in solving it. Reminding people it hasn't gone away is another one. In that light we might view this as good news of a kind.

 

"Women are being held back in the workplace by inflexible practices and outdated attitudes to family responsibilities, a new study claims."

 

From- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4133669.stm

[coquina]

Women are the child-bearers, but they don't have to be the exclusive child-carers. I think that if a man and woman decide to have a child, the should make arrangements equally regarding its care.

 

Both genders of children will do better if both parents take an active role in child rearing. When the parents are doing work around the house, they ought to invite (and from time to time insist), that the children help. Sons and daughters will both be better off if they both know how to sew on a button or fix a flat.