What should be the goal of education?

[Chuck Naill]

Who or what determines the needs and capacities of a person?

[JuneAmara]

You really don't have to fail to learn.
Education should focus on chasing the bag

[Cookedj]

Some are, others do exactly what they need to graduate and are okay with being ignorant.

These generalizations apply equally to adults, no? Just substitute "please an employer" for "graduate" and you pretty well some up most of working life. One would hope that most adults would be interested in learning and growth, but we all know actually what a mixture of motivations and intensities of motivations exists out there.

They absolutely do! The get-by-guy doing just enough to keep their job, but not excel at it. Honestly knowing how much I actually model behavior for the junior and senior students, I try to always make lessons on communication, bias in the media, how to survive etc. I am brutally honest with them, not to the point of crushing their spirit, but letting them know after graduation it's all them.

[Cookedj]

Failing is a great teacher, and it isn't a bad thing to fail at something.

[Chuck Naill]

For you educators or educators. Do students today feel they are being attacked by the "elites"? I found this today. If I were a parent of HS students I would be stressing education and particularily how to self educate. I the US the public library is a vast resource to self educate.

"Right-wing populists usually identify what they call liberal elites in culture, politics and the media as the “enemies of the people.” Combined with the rejection of marginalized groups like immigrants, this creates targets to blame for dissatisfaction with one’s personal situation or the state of society as a whole while leaving a highly unequal economic system intact. Right-wing populists’ focus on the so-called culture wars, the narrative that one’s culture is under attack from liberal elites, is very effective because culture can be an important source of identity and self-worth for people. It is also effective in organizing political conflicts along cultural, rather than economic lines."

[Chip]

When I taught field courses, I tried to pass on what I'd learned about mountains, rivers, glaciers, and the forces such as gravity and thermodynamics that animate our world.

Some of it, I'd been taught by teachers and mentors (e.g. Luna Leopold of the US Geological Survey). Some I'd learned through observation and experience.

Beyond the natural science, I also taught students and field assistants practical skills: how to climb rock and ice, how to ski the backcountry, wade fast streams, paddle a boat in a current, find a route through steep and difficult terrain, how to locate a camp and live outdoors, how to anticipate hazards and avoid them, how to be comfortable and happy in wild and remote places, while getting the job done.

Quite a few of the high-school students who took our field courses changed their selection of college major to natural science. Several of my field assistants took up careers in environmental science, climate research, wildlife and fish biology, and similar fields.

I also taught English literature, and creative writing in classrooms and workshops, with an identical aim: to pass on insights and skills about using language in a memorable way.

[Chuck Naill]

If anything, education should teach us how to do research and discover what is true. I am thinking of the Sandy Hook/Alex Jones conspiracy.

[Chip]

I never liked teaching in a classroom, breathing that stale departmental air.

If you want to teach about rivers, go to a river. That gives the students something real to focus on. It also gives them the chance to learn in a direct way, often aside from what's being taught. When I did a session on stream meanders, I had the students wade across some bends, to get the feel of different current speeds and turbulence.

One young woman, who loved dance, came up with an exercise in which we formed a line, linked hands, and then acted out the differing current speeds, resulting in a human diagram of a meander bend. Sheer genius on her part.

[Chuck Naill]

Experiencing rivers is a good thing. Learning what took place in those rivers requires more. So, I can appreciate the historians and classrooms.

[Chip]

Learning what took place in those rivers requires more.

In the rivers? I don't get it. Could you explain?

[Chuck Naill]

Learning what took place in those rivers requires more.

In the rivers? I don't get it. Could you explain?

The rivers I paddled, whitewater, floated logs, commercial endeavors, and I the one where I grew up, Cherokee hunters.

[Chip]

Doesn't sound as if you got that knowledge in a classroom.

Fluvial geomorphology is my field: how flowing water creates landforms. My thesis was on using lichen horizons and species composition, along with a physical survey of the channel, to estimate river flows back several thousand years.



The study area, Northgate Canyon on the North Platte River, is extremely remote and difficult to reach. It was too rough for boats until modern inflatables were developed, and is still risky. The only historical datum I used was that when timber was cut and driven to supply ties to the transcontinental railroad (c. 1867), the highest point from which they could be floated was a place called Six Mile Gap. Since tie drives scoured the river bed and banks pretty severely, I located my study area above that point, so the lichen record would be intact.

Sounds like we have at least two things in common: old-time music and running rivers.

[Chuck Naill]

Doesn't sound as if you got that knowledge in a classroom.

Fluvial geomorphology is my field: how flowing water creates landforms. My thesis was on using lichen horizons and species composition, along with a physical survey of the channel, to estimate river flows back several thousand years.



The study area, Northgate Canyon on the North Platte River, is extremely remote and difficult to reach. It was too rough for boats until modern inflatables were developed, and is still risky. The only historical datum I used was that when timber was cut and driven to supply ties to the transcontinental railroad (c. 1867), the highest point from which they could be floated was a place called Six Mile Gap. Since tie drives scoured the river bed and banks pretty severely, I located my study area above that point, so the lichen record would be intact.

Sounds like we have at least two things in common: old-time music and running rivers.

Mostly creeks and rivers in the Smoky Mountains and Cumberland Plateau. I lived 45 minutes from a favorite section of the Little River so I could paddle it after work.

[Chuck Naill]

I have canoes, c-1’s , and a Aire Puma.

I was more of a crash and burn paddler. First time I paddled the Ocoee I swam every rapid. Then I took two weekends of lessons from a lady in her 50's. She later taught my grandaugthers when she was in her 80's.

Unlike me, my son got into it as a child. His first trip was sitting behind me in a Blue Hole Starburst when he was four. He became a very talented c-boater.

My eldest, a daughter, paddles tandem several rivers.


We go on a family flotilla every year with grand children.

[Chip]

Years ago, a good mate, Jack Kloepfer, started a company, Jack's Plastic Welding, that makes cat tubes, dry bags, and heavy-duty air mattresses (Paco Pads). The blue boat in the photo is his Pack Cat, which can be backpacked to a remote headwater or wherever. I've also got a 12 ft. Cutthroat sport cat that's amazing in big water and a 15 ft. Flyer Cat for long floats.

Here's a pic of me on the Colorado in the Grand Canyon. Swam five times: not bad for a small boat in big water.



Here's one of Deb and me balanced on a rock called Lucifer, in Hell's Half Mile on the Green River in Lodore Canyon.



We managed to rock the boat off with no harm done (except to our nerves). I sent the photo to Jack and he blew it up and posted it on the wall in the shop. He said they had some good laughs.

[Chuck Naill]

Years ago, a good mate, Jack Kloepfer, started a company, Jack's Plastic Welding, that makes cat tubes, dry bags, and heavy-duty air mattresses (Paco Pads). The blue boat in the photo is his Pack Cat, which can be backpacked to a remote headwater or wherever. I've also got a 12 ft. Cutthroat sport cat that's amazing in big water and a 15 ft. Flyer Cat for long floats.

Here's a pic of me on the Colorado in the Grand Canyon. Swam five times: not bad for a small boat in big water.



Here's one of Deb and me balanced on a rock called Lucifer, in Hell's Half Mile on the Green River in Lodore Canyon.



We managed to rock the boat off with no harm done (except to our nerves). I sent the photo to Jack and he blew it up and posted it on the wall in the shop. He said they had some good laughs.

Wow, that could have been a bad pin. Thank you for sharing, Chip.

These are poor quality, but you can get an idea of creeks I ran.

[Chip]

Can't see any photos. I've been using an online hosting service, imgur, that works very well.

I've seen photos and videos of boats pinned on that rock, which is infamous. It's a very steep rapid and we were going so fast that we slid up the green algae coating to balance on top. This was shot seconds after we tipped off. Deb was yelling at our friend on the bank: Did you get a picture of that?



The nearest challenging whitewater runs are the Poudre Canyon in Colorado and Northgate Canyon on the North Platte. This is a rapid called Narrow Falls.



At peak flows, about half the boats that go down will flip.

[Empty_of_Clouds]

Whoa! Looks like fun there. I've kayaked a couple of small rivers here in New Zealand, and a little open water stuff, but really was just an enthusiastic beginner and never progressed skill wise. Back in the mid 90s I was in Zimbabwe and spent a few days around Victoria Falls. Took a day trip rafting the Zambesi river below the Falls. Quite a rush. No pictures but there was some video footage that probably needs to be converted to a digital format to view now.

[Chip]

New Zealand has some incredible whitewater. I tried to arrange a run on the Buller, but it never came together. Did a lot of paddling on Lyttelton Harbour, but most of my attention was on sailing.

To ease back to education, I'd say a major goal is to pass on one's personal knowledge, and the collective knowledge and learning of society, to young people, so they don't have to start from scratch. It 's up to them how much to accept or dispute or change according to their needs and further learning. But we have a body of knowledge that represents a tremendous amount of work and observation and passion: a worthwhile legacy.

I'm grateful to my teachers and mentors in several fields.

[TSherbs]

There are some sharp rocks in these pics! I've paddled some white water in Canada in my younger days (Ontario, Quebec, British Colombia) but I would not attempt it again... All I own now is a fishing kayak....