Learn a new skill every week

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

OK, a little late as a New Year's resolution but...

For anyone wanting to become more self-reliant – notice that I rarely use the word self-sufficient, as true self-sufficiency just is not possible – skills are what count and not a huge amount of supplies, even not in the event of an Apocalypse and such. It is skills that will see you through when everything else fails and has failed. And, for goodness sake, don't believe the idiots trying to sell you silver and gold coins as something that will get you buy in such events. Then again it is not – just – for those events you should learn skills and perfect your skills.

If you would try to learn one new skill per week then that would make fifty-two per year and even if it is not one every week but one every fortnight or even if only one a month, but then thoroughly. Skills – and knowledge – are what is going to get you and yours through a crisis or simply making your life better where you are by being able to do things that otherwise you may have to pay for.

It is true that you can and will unlike become a master every skill that you may need but at least you can become a master in a couple and proficient in a fair number more.

One of the most important skills, and so many no longer seem to be capable of it, is cooking from scratch. I know to many reader that would be obvious but for some people simply boiling an egg seems rocket science nowadays let alone cooking anything else that isn't just ready to go into the microwave. Some cookery programs not so long ago actually stated with teaching people how to – no, not a joke – boil water, followed then by how to boil an egg. When people need to be taught how to boil a saucepan with water then the world definitely has lost the plot and relearning of skill definitely is called for.

Another important skill, if I may call it that way, is, in my opinion, making do and mending, and just simply making do with what one has, and making things one may need from scratch and scrap. Into that category should also fall reusing, repurposing and upcycling of waste materials, such as glass jars, tin cans, plastic bottles, etc. While some of it should come natural, with some imagination, it would appear that many today, however, need instructions for anything in that department, though.

Obviously, there are many skills that you may want to have and learn but starting easy is the best option and the skills themselves are legion so listing all of them would fill a book, without even going into detail.

Woodworking on a number of levels, from making simple items, over carving spoons and other treen, to making furniture if a valuable skill set to have but it is not learned over night.

Textile crafts: Now this encompasses anything really from mending clothes up to and including of making your own clothes and even your own cloth. It also includes crochet and knitting.

Metal working: This could be anything from sheet metal working – a great way of converting tin cans into something new – to full blacksmithing and anything and everything in between.

Leather working: This is another one of those skills that you may, more or less, definitely want to learn as the making of leather items are not only useful for you as useful things but those items can also become an income. In the main it is akin to sewing only with a difference but if you can sew running stitch then you can also work in leather. Theoretically the stitch is a different one but, personally, I just use the running stitch, then reversed, and the process repeated.

This list could go on ad infinitum (almost) as there are so many skills that would and could be worth learning and learning to do them is one thing, mastering them an entirely different story, though. So, let's go and try to learn as many skills as possible and then go onto trying to master them as far as possible.

© 2018

Teaching children skills that are really important

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Instead of worrying whether we should give gold stars for participating or for being the best we should involve children in real world activities where the end result of the activity itself is the reward.

Teaching them gardening, woodworking, repair skills, fiber arts, sewing, leatherwork, cooking, and so on. Those are important skills that are useful. I am not saying that reading and writing and being able to do sums and such are not. Those are essential for self-directed learning but so very many subjects and things that are taught in public schools today are not necessary, let alone essential, for later life. Those subjects are just taught because they are used for the passing of tests and many are as useful in later life as the proverbial bits on a hog.

Getting them out hiking somewhere with gorgeous views. Teach them to raise animals and care something other than themselves. Have the help out an elderly relative or elderly neighbor. Give them age appropriate chores to do in the home, garden, etc. and making them feel important when they have done so.

When they help you in the garden (I know that to begin with such help can be more a hindrance than help) don't give them plastic or cheap “tin” gardening tools but invest in the small version of the real thing. They can be had. Or, with a little ingenuity, make the bigger tools smaller, and suitable for them.

The same goes for woodworking and such like activities. Years ago one could get real woodworking toolboxes, for instance, for children with real, small, saws, planes,, chisels, hammers, etc. Today, alas, they no longer seem to exist. The fear that kids could hurt themselves with those has done away with this, it would appear.

Our society has lost what is truly important in life. It is time to find it again. It teaches the young ones things – in school – that are more or less unimportant and those things that are important for life and in life it tends to neglect. In fact, often the school system makes those things that are not part of the “curriculum” out as unimportant and actively discourages the pursuit of those despite the fact that those are the things that are important in and for life.

The school system, and no doubt not just in Britain, “teaches” children to pass tests rather than teaches them things for life. Good test results put schools in front in the league tables but it does nothing for the students. The only way to change that is if we either demand the system to change, are able to change it ourselves – and I do not think that those two will happen – or take maters into our own hands, as many people do already, and homeschool or even unschool our kids.

© 2017

Older people teach young ones traditional skills at GrandFest

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Older people led masterclasses in skills such as dressmaking and bread-making at GrandFest, a one-day festival in east London.

Thousands of people came together for GrandFest on June 18, 2017 to celebrate the knowledge held by older people and to learn skills that organizers say are becoming less common.

Now in its third year, the event hosted more than twenty classes at restaurants, pubs and shops around Spitalfields Market. Each class was run by a festival GrandMaker – all of whom are over 70 – and skills included quilting, wood turning and cider making.

It is very important to pass on the older traditional skills that are disappearing and there are so many old and traditional skills that are going that way and which also may be needed more than ever in the future, in the post-carbon world.

Even cooking from scratch, let alone brad making, including and especially sour dough bread, are skills that are fast disappearing. Others have almost gone entirely and many are going if they are not being passed on. That is why festivals such as this one are so very important.

Often such events are held in rural locales and while they need to be held and taught there as well for even in the countryside the old countryside skills are being slowly lost they also must be held in towns and cities and that also more often.

It is extremely important to pass on the older skills to a younger generation, and especially the young generation, as most are rapidly disappearing (the skills, not the younger generation) and many are already lost or almost lost.

In a time not so long ago those skills would have been, automatically almost, passed on from father and grandfather to son and grandson, and from mother and grandmother to daughter and granddaughter. But this has all but disappeared. Not because the young people are not interested but because the older folks think that they are not interested, or that the skills are no longer of any (practical) use.

The festival was hosted by older people's charity the Royal Voluntary Service, which helps more than 100,000 people each month connect with others and keep active.

As I said already, however, we need more of those festivals, fairs or whatever we may wish to call them, and that everywhere, as much as in towns as in rural locales. Even in the countryside many of the old skills are diminishing and are becoming lost as the old practitioners die and have no one to pass the skills on to.

And, in addition to that, we need grandparents to pass skills on to their grandchildren. Young children are generally very receptive and willing to learn and it will be much better for them to learn such skills that may come in rather handy, especially in the post-carbon world into which we are headed, than to play around on their PC, tablet or smartphone, engaging in useless games and other activities.

Introduce them, for instance, to gardening and you will be surprised how eager they will be to do it and to learn. The same goes for cooking, for woodcarving, leather working, and many other old – and not so old, even – skills and crafts.

© 2017

Our society has lost sight of what is truly important in life

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Our society has indeed lost sight of what is truly important in life and it is high time to find it again.

What if – Instead of worrying about whether we should give kids gold stars for participating or gold stars for being the best, we would involve them in real world activities where the end result of the activity itself is the reward?

Teach them gardening, woodworking, repair skills, fiber arts, sewing, cooking. Get them out hiking somewhere with a gorgeous view. Raise animals – have them learn to care about something other than themselves. Have them help out a grandparent or elderly neighbor.

Schools, unfortunately, do not teach things that are important to children but teach them how to pass tests instead. Woodworking classes, or even “Design & Technology”, as they were called later, cooking (Home Economics), and such have gone out of the window and instead they are just taught to – basically – memorize what they require to pass those tests so that the schools look good in the so-called “league tables”.

While lessons in “mindfulness”, in meditation, as being introduced in some primary schools in Britain now, are a good idea there are other practical aspects that are important and that from a very early age. Practical skills such as using tools to make things, to grow things, to cook, and so on.

Memorizing dates and events and information that they will, more than likely, never need in their lives after school is not just a waste of time. It prevents proper learning. It would be much better to teach kids to read and write properly, and to enjoy reading for the sake of reading, as well as where to find the information that they may want to know. It is not what you know but knowing where to find the information and to use this information that counts.

Most important of all are life skills, practical skills, and the skill of critical thinking. Schools, teachers, and others also fail kids and society in that they do not teach them how to think but what to think. This is not new at all. School and the compulsory school “education” was, after all, invented for the very reason to indoctrinate children into what to think rather than to teach them critical thinking.

In addition to that everything is geared to academic “success” which in the end means that we have people with PhDs flipping burgers are burger joints. There are only that many places available for all those that have attended university and gotten a degree in this or that, and more often that not, as is now very often the case, in useless subjects. However, schools will insist to push pupils, even if they, the pupils that is, are not interested, towards academic subjects and university and it can be one heck of a fight for the student and his or her parents to get the school to accept the young person's decision to pursue a non-academic career.

Working with one's hands is nowadays seems to be considered by educators and people in general as something dirty and a career in “manual” trades, whether agriculture, horticulture, forestry, carpentry, plumbing, and whatever else, as something that no one really should aspire to. And then we wonder that we have no carpenters or plumbers, and whatever else, and complain that they are all Poles.

Everything is being geared to making lots of money and then still more, often at the detriment of others in society. We have lost what really matters in the pursuit of what really does not and we must rediscover those things that really matter.

© 2015