My daughter's teacher

Great stories
When anyone asks I always say I make kitchen knives so always get a good reaction
Horsewright great pics as always
And to think I wince when I see farmers here using the burdizzo
If I was the calf I don't know which I'd rather
 
I usually start with the virtues of a low friction cheese knife and a nakiri, then depending on where it goes I might move onto push daggers, karambits and swords...
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
I had a teacher correct my son's test marking that he was wrong on a question. He had written that Christopher Columbus sailed west to America. She marked it wrong ( and I assume many other students were marked wrong, too). I made a note on the test that she was wrong, and that indeed, Columbus had sailed west. He took it to her the next day and she made a comment in front of the class that his father must be an idiot if he thinks Columbus sailed west. He was very upset, and ran out of the room crying. They sent him down to the nurse, who called my wife to come get him. I told him not to worry about it and that I would make sure his teacher knew what the right answer was. It was Friday, and like kids do, he forgot it after ice cream and a weekend of family fun. That night, I called a friend who was on a civic committee with me. He also happened to be the school board superintendent. We set a meeting for Monday at 10AM at his office with the teacher (no explanation to her as of why). The teacher, superintendent, and I sat down. She asked why she was there, and I took out the test. I asked the superintendent which direction Columbus would have sailed to come to America. He replied - WEST. The teacher looked confused and asked, "Then why is it called the East Coast?" After a brief geography and compass discussion she acquiesced that she was wrong. Then the superintendent really lowered the boom about her calling a child's father an idiot in front of the class. I received an apology from her, but told her I wasn't the offended one. I also pointed out that I didn't call her an idiot for being a certified teacher who doesn't know directions or why it is called then East Coast. The superintendent told her to apologize to the entire class and my son the next morning, and explain why what she said was so wrong. It happened, and I hope she became a better teacher …. but I tend to doubt it.
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Stacy, I laughed & at the same time cried when I read this last Jan.. My wife is a teacher and this pass Vets day during teacher lounge talk she asked another teacher what kind of lesson he was going to give the kids about Veterans day & the three day weekend? He replied that he didn’t like guns so he wasn’t going to say anything at all! The stupid is Strong in our educational system here in Merica.. Veterans day has nothing to do with his personal feelings..........It’s about honoring those that made the sacrifice so he could be an idiot .. My wife who teachers 3rd grade. Told the kids that it was good to eat hotdogs & play etc, but remember that men & women did what was needed so you can enjoy the day off and if they see someone in uniform or know someone who served , To say, Thank you for your service!
 
Hilarious Randy3000...Now I have to look up Van Halens "Hot for teacher" video!
Dave - Where I grew up, Emma would be a keeper. Functional and pretty on the farm!!! That's a priceless picture.
Ken H -those kids are actually dissecting fish and doing all sorts of questioning and finding answers. They will dissect fish about 3-5 times over the course of a few weeks. After each dissection they answer questions they already had and then write down more and do research to get ready to answer the new questions in their next dissection. They figure out why an image is upside down and reversed when they look through the eye lens. Compare chambers of the heart to other animals and human hearts. Look at everything under the sun through microscopes, remove and try to find different regions of the brains. They hypothesize about why gills and lungs are so close to the heart in animals....the questions and research are endless. I seldom have a problem getting kids to read and write when they are hands on and excited about a subject. It's way more engaging than watching a video and then answering questions on a worksheet.
Couple more pics.
Making steam bent fishing nets. Kid designed and made their own jigs for steam bending. Cut the wood strips...did it all. Got a big herring net from a local fisherman and they cut their pieces of net from that and sewed it up into bags for their nets. Everyone did a little wood burning to finish them off.
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Doing some shoring up before some proper bridge building.IMG_0975.jpg

Getting out gear to set up school in a new location.

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Horsewright said:
Not this part of Cali! Just turned 17 year old Emma is castrating her first calf:

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Keep telling ya guys there's no bikinis and palm trees around here:

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I understand completely. I grew up in California. In fact I went to High School in Bakersfield. So I'm very familiar with the Central Valley. It wasn't meant as a dig at California. Just a dig at my rather strange relative.
I love your Ranch.
 
Randydb said:
Dave - Where I grew up, Emma would be a keeper. Functional and pretty on the farm!!! That's a priceless picture.
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Randy - i agree that is a priceless picture ... but i would be careful of the conclusions you draw from it. With the kind of attitude she shows, she could very likely end up in either Med or Vet school ... and end up REALLY knowing how to use that knife. :-). (I will have to admit i say that from experience: my dear beautiful wife is a physician who came up through the Old School (you know, 72 hour shifts, staring down people who think they know better, etc). Just ... be careful. :-)
 
I get it Cushing. My wife was farm girl. Tough as nails and up to her elbows in it when they butchered animals. Could drive a combine and change an axle when it broke. Nothing stopped her. Good farm stock! She's a nurse now and good at that too. I just figure kids (male or female) who grow up learning to work hard and can figure out how to fix stuff and overcome have another level of ability that transfers all over the place in life.
 
yeah .. it gets complicated. Judging anyone by looks is fraught. Horeswright - i will lay odds that young lady ends up in Vet school - which is HARDER than med school - gotta learn many anatomies and physiologies, not just one...
 
Randydb said:
I just figure kids (male or female) who grow up learning to work hard and can figure out how to fix stuff and overcome have another level of ability that transfers all over the place in life.
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Randy, that is so true and has been one of big grips about so many of the younger generation, they really don't know the pleasure of actually "building" things. It's NOT the fault of the younger (20 to 40 yr old), but due to the lack of experience they've been exposed to. Your school sounds like a place I'd LOVE to send my kids to - well, my "kids" are almost 50, even granddaughter is 20 yrs old! Allow me to say your school is the type of school we NEED more of in this country.
 
X2. I hope my comments have not been taken as detracting from what randy is doing. I think what randy is doing and giving to those kids is incredibly valuable, on a great many levels.
 
Cushing H. said:
X2. I hope my comments have not been taken as detracting from what randy is doing. I think what randy is doing and giving to those kids is incredibly valuable, on a great many levels.
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Don't be ridiculous Cushing...what you are saying isn't detracting at all. I think we are all demonstrating real world learning...get something you want to do or know and then spend a lot of time questioning and learning about it and knowing more about it. There is nothing wrong with pointing towards different opportunities or paths. Nothing wrong with questioning methods...I think that is how we find better methods.

I know that as these kids learn in a hands on way that they are developing the important skills needed to be successful adults no matter what they choose to become. Follow through, perseverance, strategizing, team work, academic skills, problem solving....and the ability to put it all together in a way that gets them to what they want to know and do.
 
Several years ago when I still lived in Vermont, while driving home from work one night I came upon a line of stopped cars on a county road. Upon investigation I saw that a small tree had come down on the road, blocking the traffic in both directions. I pulled a small axe out of the trunk of my Subaru, quickly cleared the fallen tree, and then gave the other commuters the all-clear. The woman at the front of the line stopped me as I headed back to my car, but instead of thanking me for clearing the fallen tree she asked: "why do you carry an axe in your car. Are you, like, a serial killer or something?"

I looked at her for a moment and then calmly replied: "yeah."

Some people just seem to have an irrational fear of common household objects. Unless you want to invite them onto your couch and start administering free therapy sessions, it's probably best to view their irrational fear as an emotional handicap and just move on.
 
seanj said:
I understand completely. I grew up in California. In fact I went to High School in Bakersfield. So I'm very familiar with the Central Valley. It wasn't meant as a dig at California. Just a dig at my rather strange relative.
I love your Ranch.
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Good deal! Yeah I've got some "coastie" cousins. The wife went to West High in Bakersfield. Thanks!


Cushing H. said:
yeah .. it gets complicated. Judging anyone by looks is fraught. Horeswright - i will lay odds that young lady ends up in Vet school - which is HARDER than med school - gotta learn many anatomies and physiologies, not just one...
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I'll take that bet but I have some insider knowledge. Emma is a very motivated young lady too. She finished high school a year early. She already has a horse training business and has for a couple of years, where she specializes in gentling and starting wild mustangs for other folks. She's getting ready to start a certified welding program at a local college too, case she gets bored. She lives about an hour away. She'll come up once in a while and help out in the shop, particularly cleaning up after my messy self. She trades her labor for cowboy stuff. Half the time she'll drag her horse up too and I'll help her on some aspect of horsemanship. BUT she doesn't want to just get the items she's trading for, she wants to LEARN how to make them. So she wanted a pair of charmitas leggings. She came up and worked until she had worked off the $550-$600 price tag then we started in. I coached and she did the work. The only thing I did was cut the fringe cause its kinda tricky and the wife did the sewing cause it can be tricky too. We worked late into the night one night cause Emma had a horse show coming up that she wanted these for:

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Got em done and the first time we saw them on her was at the show. Here listening to the judges instructions with another young lady competitor, (look close both girls have a Horsewright knife on, don't know the other gal).

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Here talking with the wife after winning the show:

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So then she wants a martingale/breast collar for her horse. Mustangs tend to be broad backed and a breast collar will help stabilize the saddle. So she comes up and works and gets it paid for (bout $350). She wants to learn how to carve and she would like it to match her saddle. So I help her cut out the parts and did part of the sewing, she did some of the sewing, she did all the carving tooling from a pattern she had drawn to match the carving on her saddle. Nichole, my wife, who does all our flower carving, coached Emma on the carving step by step but Emma did it all.

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In cowboy vernacular she's getting pretty darn handy:

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Just part of our ranching family. She's being raised right by a single mom. Heck even our CRAY CRAY crazy old, retired cowdog likes her.

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Horsewright - It's that "I don't just want to buy it....I want to learn to make it/do it" thinking that takes people another step beyond. They wind up being convinced they can figure anything out and learn the patience and drive to make that happen. They aren't afraid to ask questions or take things they don't understand on. You look at a kid like Emma, she could go to university, start her own business, teach horseback riding, work on a farm, or anything else she wants. She understands how to learn and work hard.
I think it is important to teach that type of learning to kids.
 
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