Stardance

New post in the Stardance blog. This is the best news I've heard in an since Peter Diamandis spoke up at the Centennial. We will actually get to see Shara Drummond live!

meme (courtesy filkertom)

http://filkertom.livejournal.com/877168.html

Tom says:
What was that Heinlein quote again...?

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Certainly, a Heinlein hero should be able to do those things. ;) Meanwhile, here on 21st-century Earth, we need a slightly different skill set.

But what?

Last time I checked his Live Journal, Tom has 92 responses.

Tom also refers to someone (Kay Steiger) who is recommending teaching life skill sets in school...and she was responding to an essay by Michael Pollan in the Sunday New York Times Magazine.

I can't do some (most) of these things, and I probably wouldn 't survive very long if I was left to my self. I am also a total flop as a teacher. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the skills that Heinlein suggested. Most of them are still important in the 21st century, as well as many of the suggestions that have been made to Tom's question about new skills sets we need to be able to learn and to teach.

I went trolling on the internet. Here are a few links:

Tackling the Tough Skills (University of Missouri Extension)--Broken down into 5 parts:Attitude, Responsibility, Communication, Problem Solving, Preparing for the Workplace

A 12 Week Course called Lifeskills 101: a curriculum for food, finance and other real world basics from a blog called Cheap, Healthy, Good

Teaching Critical Thinking: A collection of links

I am going to post this here and in my two blogs and send it to a friend who is much more widely read than I am and see what happens.

Hell, maybe I will even learn some of the things (I've only been trying to for a half century more or less)

the future and the past

http://blogs.nature.com/wp/nascent/2008/09/the_future_is_a_foreign_countr.html

Timo Hanney

bewitching breasts...

It's (almost) Oct. 1 and time to remind ourselves to do breast self exam.

Go here to see the October reminder from Hecate.