Bucket list 37 – Wink and nod education

June 1, 2014

We begin learning in our embryo state when the confines of the womb allow us only so much latitude. We know we receive our sustenance automatically, can move our limbs to the extent that they push on the outer limits of our comfortable nest, and generally find comfort in growing day by day. We continue in essentially the same way, being comforted, fed, loved, and having all our temporal needs addressed without any effort on our part. Then, stage two begins and we start learning in ways that invoke terms like no and mama; experiences like crying, eating, smiling, and seeing; and feeling things like wet, hunger, sleepiness, and lack of something, or other. Learning comes fast in stage two with the whole world in front of them.

Stage three brings learning through implication and innuendo. We learn that if we fuss and cry we will get a certain reaction and reward. We learn that if we ask mother and get a negative answer we can always go to father and plead for mercy. Sometimes we just need to look to permission first and forgiveness after should we not get our way. We learn that if we see hesitation or complicit acceptance in mom’s look, or get a wink and a nod from dad, we have tacit permission to do whatever notion for which we have been politicking. Can we go to a friend’s house that is too far away to be a safe walk? Do we need to go to church again this week? Can we avoid eating fruits and vegetables and rely on pizza, soda pop, and chips? Can we be belligerent and uncivilized around strangers, or people that are not our favorites? Our answers to these questions throughout life impact the very nature of our existence in our cultural environment.

Examples of stage three learning abound in our homes, communities, government, military, business, industry, and all places far and wide. Stage three learning may well become the ill that brings modern civilization to its very knees.

Example one:

In our homes we search for those who will provide a wink and nod. Dad, can I borrow the car even though I haven’t completed my chores or my homework? Recently a commercial has been airing on television which boldly declares six, or seven times, “Son (daughter) don’t tell your mother (father) giving the wink and nod to do is okay and will be condoned without incident. Dad avoids being home and part of the daily activities without serious negative impacts. Mom searches the internet and face book for hours each day ignoring children, chores, and choreographing life’s dance. Nothing is said and ultimately this becomes the norm.

In our communities we find aberrant behaviors such as disgustingly revealing clothing all around us and declare by our wink and nod that all is well. On one occasion when I was teaching in the Skill Center at the South City Campus of Salt Lake Community College I was trying to assist a young lady who had a halter-top shirt on over nothing but bare skin. I was delicately trying to look at her computer screen and anyplace else that didn’t include her completely uncovered breasts and front. This wasn’t the first circumstance, nor the last, but it was the only one in which a colleague, Linda Housekeeper saw the situation for what it was and did what I would have been summarily fired for; she walked over to the girl, grabbed her shirt and sternly told the girl to “cover up”. She did and I resumed teaching and she continued learning; in this case much more than what was being taught in the lesson. On another occasion a million years ago I was walking to my class at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona when I overheard four girls on a balcony say in total disgust, “look the whole place is nothing more than a nudist colony.

Imagine what we could do if we stood up like Linda Housekeeper and made a difference. Certainly not be putting ourselves, or our respect and professionalism in harm’s way; rather by not doing the wink and not performance with which we have become so very, very practiced.

May God bless each of us as we share the wonderful life we have with those around us who are less fortunate?

Duane Jacobs, grandfather, father, brother, uncle, cousin, and friend