[TheForge] test?

[marilyn traber 011221]

Awright guys, be nice, and chill out. Modern education tends to be lacking in any number of respects, and the problem is too complex to 
be solved with a few thoughts shot out on a smithing List.

When I went back to OU after being out of school for 20 years, I was amazed to discover that I had to take and pass very basic reading 
and arithmetic classes, just to be able to take the placement tests, so the schools, at least the public schools, don't seem to be turning 
out people with basic academic competence. When I was selling insurance, my company paid highly trained professionals to design and 
write our policies so that an 8th grader could understand them, and I was still running into people who couldn't read and comprehend what 
they were reading.

And it's just as bad for practical education in the prep schools. I was in a private girl's boarding school, and got talked to because I had 
been spending time with the black maintenance staff, fixing my bicycle and skis, and talking with the ladies in the kitchen about preparing 
food. Fortunately, my Headmistress and my Principal had taught my mother, and knew me well enough to allow me to continue- it paid 
dividends for them when I performed a simple temporary fix on a broken door lock 15 minutes before an important BoD meeting (it was a 
weekend, and Wilford was off).

There is no simple answer to our educational deficiencies, but at least we're continuing to try- even the liberal idiots were making an effort, 
no matter how misguided.

But let's at least cut each other a bit of slack, here on the Forge. We're from many different backgrounds, with many different sets of life 
experience, united in a common goal- to improve and spread the word about our particular passion, beating iron and steel into 
submission. Save your hammers, verbal and otherwise, for that ;-)

Phlip

Never a horse that cain't be rode, 
And never a rider who cain't be throwed.