Dear Friends,
It seems to me, we are confronted with a myriad of problems every day, then solve them by whatever means we have become accustomed to, some ways effective, others parasitic and many… carnivorous. The way we solve our life problems is usually the result of the aggregate of ways we have solved them in the past. When we are children all our problems are solved by our parents, parent or orphanage. As we grow we learn to solve them ourselves, out of impatience, dissatisfaction with our parents solutions, else we are on our own and must solve them ourselves. I wonder if it isn’t a valid role of elementary school then, to teach effective ways to solve daily problems? Doing so would eliminate much of the drug related crime in our culture, improve the life outcomes of the students and humanity itself.
You are cold, that is a problem, moreover, you have to walk a mile in that cold to get home. The solution that first presents itself is the means by which you usually solve problems. Would you rob a weaker person of their coat, car or both? Maybe call home and beg a ride? Would you man up an take it? Would you pick dry grass and stuff it between your shirts to keep warm? Would you take a cab, a bus or hitch hike? The possible solutions are infinite. The solution someone chooses though, reflects their upbringing, maturity and human heartedness. The carnivorous way to solve it would be to take a coat, car or both, from a weaker person. The parasitic way would be to beg a ride. The person with personal agency would stuff their shirt with dry grass, take a bus, cab or man up and deal with it.
I believe that the reason some people take the carnivorous and parasitic paths is they were never properly taught how to solve problems for themselves. Often it is the all consuming mother who hobbles her children into parasites. A violent frustrated father can do enormous damage as well. He will often turn his children into carnivores. Both means are only effective, if someone else is available to leach off, use, else rob. If the carnivore or parasite is trapped without a victim, they are left unable to solve problems. Since people who solve their problems by sucking off someone else, or just taking what they want, by definition, must have others available at all times, as their only means to solve life’s daily problems… so are probably extroverts. This illustrates a great weakness in those solutions.
I have found that the effective way to solve problems, is to look at how others have solved them in the past, apply those solutions in a thought experiment to the situation, and use the one that is the most effective at this time given these circumstances. The utility of this scheme depends on the examples one has to compare. Examples come from life experience, stories and religion. Since life experience, requires life experience, that avenue of examples is cut off from children. This is why I think that every child should be told all the fables, be made to read Horatio Alger stories and when older, Plutarch’s Lives. Not in a vacuum but first introducing to them why they are reading these stories. This is why we have religion, fables and stories. Our lore exists to educate children about life.
Imagine if most people had the tools to solve their own problems without resorting to theft, begging or fraud? The world would be a much better place to live, raise children and retire in. Such a world starts with the education system. Today’s failing curriculum needs to be replaced with something else. By every metric, other than zealous clutching to an ideology, today’s graduates are educationally retarded. Knowing how to have safe anal intercourse, is not as valuable for a child to know as the Golden Rule, skepticism and pragmatism. Learning the proper way to discard a condom cannot be as important for a teen, as knowing how to create a profit loss statement, how to read cursive or change a tire. Teach our kids to solve their own problems… and the problems of society will vanish.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
