I was born and raised in a small, rural mountain town in upper east Tennessee, which was pretty cut off from the rest of the world. It was an all day trip on winding roads just to get to Knoxville, so we made that trip only two or three times a year.
I'm as native as you can get, but am fairly well educated and worked most of my life in a technical field. Have traveled the world and served in the USMC.
I also grew up in a small southern town. I only have a high school education, but formal education is not the only road to become educated, right. If you grew up in a small isolated rural area, I bet some of the people whom you'll regard to your dying day as "the smartest people I ever knew" are from your same town, and had very little formal education. This is the way it is with me. My dad will always be the smartest, most highly respected person I'll ever know, and he went till the third grade.
BTW - I also have a technical background, and work as a software consultant now, doing the same job that people with college educations do.
True, oh so true. In my time I have known some of the most resourceful and broad-knowledge people, and not all of whom had gone to college. They found other avenues to achieve life goals. Sadly I have also known some of the most highly educated dunces you could imagine. Some years ago I came across the term "IYI" ... "intellectual yet idiot".
Given the state of today's education system (and I know because I worked for a few years at a large southern university), I expect the IYI phenomenon to just get worse. No one is allowed to fail anymore, especially if they belong to a minority group. The future of America is that the professional classes will be polluted by low-performing dunces who got through the system on pity and msguided tolerance.
TV personality Mike Rowe understands this, that all work is ennobling, and that we need to understand that the farmer, the machinist, the truck driver, the oil rig worker, the people doing everyday jobs are what keeps America fed and moving.
I was born and raised in a small, rural mountain town in upper east Tennessee, which was pretty cut off from the rest of the world. It was an all day trip on winding roads just to get to Knoxville, so we made that trip only two or three times a year.
I'm as native as you can get, but am fairly well educated and worked most of my life in a technical field. Have traveled the world and served in the USMC.
Not bad for a small town mountain boy native.
I also grew up in a small southern town. I only have a high school education, but formal education is not the only road to become educated, right. If you grew up in a small isolated rural area, I bet some of the people whom you'll regard to your dying day as "the smartest people I ever knew" are from your same town, and had very little formal education. This is the way it is with me. My dad will always be the smartest, most highly respected person I'll ever know, and he went till the third grade.
BTW - I also have a technical background, and work as a software consultant now, doing the same job that people with college educations do.
True, oh so true. In my time I have known some of the most resourceful and broad-knowledge people, and not all of whom had gone to college. They found other avenues to achieve life goals. Sadly I have also known some of the most highly educated dunces you could imagine. Some years ago I came across the term "IYI" ... "intellectual yet idiot".
Given the state of today's education system (and I know because I worked for a few years at a large southern university), I expect the IYI phenomenon to just get worse. No one is allowed to fail anymore, especially if they belong to a minority group. The future of America is that the professional classes will be polluted by low-performing dunces who got through the system on pity and msguided tolerance.
TV personality Mike Rowe understands this, that all work is ennobling, and that we need to understand that the farmer, the machinist, the truck driver, the oil rig worker, the people doing everyday jobs are what keeps America fed and moving.