Viva Frei Interview With Jessica Rose Puts Essential Education on Display
The Education Wars Part 22
Other Education Wars articles can be found here. Join the MetaPrep educational community.
I had the pleasure of watching Viva Frei's entire two hour interview with my friend Jessica Rose. But I want to take a moment and highlight something very specific about Jessica's story that is worth understanding—perhaps more valuable than any data she could ever contribute to unraveling an understanding of the experimental gene therapy products so often in the news, lately.
Viva is an energetic, smart, and good natured interviewer. It is no wonder he has grown popular. This particular interview brought out a bit of information about Jessica that I didn't even know after knowing her for almost two years.
Viva was shocked to find out how old Jessica is. This is at least partially because she is an adventurer whose high energy and positive nature have infused her with a sense of enduring youthfulness. And it's that adventurous nature that I'd like to focus on because it is one of the key attributes of education. It can also be a good antidote to feelings of doom and depression that I believe are thrust on us intentionally—both by the mainstream media, and also (sadly) by portions of the burgeoning alternative media.
https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/the-existential-fear-button
Education: The Adventurer vs. The Drone
It is important for any new RTE readers to begin here (if you haven't read through the history of Prussian education already):
https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/meditation-and-the-art-of-war?s=w
The Drone submits to the Prussian model—perhaps because they are told to do so by their parents and society, and perhaps with the goal of attaining wealth, power, or authority.
The Adventurer attains education throughout the adventure of life. That might mean school, or it might mean something else. And those choices can look different from one leg of the adventure to the next.
Jessica fits the Adventurer mold. People listening to her give talks and present testimony may think of her as a Computational Biologist, but that was one of her several journeys that included surfing, hosting a flamenco dance studio in her home, working for 15 years in the service industry, a bit of acting…oh, and studying biology and mathematics.
Two things you should not be surprised to see more often from the Adventurer:
Political blindness in studying the VAERS data.
Building differential equation models for some specific purpose in biology.
You know the story of the former, but Jessica talks with Viva about the latter with respect to medical treatment patterns—one of the largest projects of her academic career. Why wouldn't one of the many millions of Drones who got a biology degree years earlier in life than Jessica did be the one to derive the model that Jessica did? Perhaps that's because a drone sees the degree, not the project, as the end goal. For those people, the credential is the reward, not the adventure. And that's the sort of norm that leads us to a place where specialization becomes an anti-educational path.
https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/specialization-is-anti-education?s=w
I just found this again and I don't think I ever told you how lovely I think it is. :)
Our society discourages the adventurer. For instance, there was a time when a person could study civics and law on his or her own and take a qualifications exam to become a lawyer, a person recognized by a judge to present a case in court. Another person could learn on his/her own how to drive a semi-tractor-trailer and pass a written and practical test to obtain a commercial driver’s license. Today such a person has to attend a school with a mandate of a minimum number of class room hours before qualifying. A person can self teach him or herself in carpentry, electrical wiring, plumbing but never be able to qualify to obtain a license without first serving a multi-year, full time apprenticeship. The same holds true for most, if not all, engineering careers. A person desiring a career in surveying must attend a four-year, full-time college degree program and then subsequently serve a minimum four year, full-time apprenticeship. In my own own career where I served for 37 years and attained the highest level of recognized achievement I am presently not qualified to teach others simply because I do not have the basic two levels of professional certification, a certification that did not exist at the time I began my career. The one career a person needs no qualifications for is politician.