Hands On Learning Part 1

We all admit to having our moments on the road, but hopefully nothing like this...I'd skip to minutes 2:50-4:00 and 6:00-7:00

Because I wanted to put more sub-par drivers on the road...I decided to learn how to drive a manual car. 


This week for our civilizations class members will work on a little self directed learning as they learn hands on about folk knowledge. Learn more about the assignment here. Trust me, there are few activities more hands on than driving a manual car.

Certainly I can drive this car. 

 I'll admit that a clutch is not exactly a new concept to me (I have this interest in mechanical systems), but theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge  have their differences. However, I still wasn't entirely sure of myself behind the wheel. ( Not the kind of head-banging discomfort I had later.)

But with my expert instructor sitting next to me, and a little explanation,  I took off for a stop and go session in a parking lot near the football stadium.

This is slightly more frustrating than previously anicipated

What did I find? Driving with a manual involves more "feeling" than anything else, definitely one of those skills that has more mantic than sophic to it. (For a discussion on this topic see this post.)

I also learned that while books are nice, you couldn't possibly think of all the cases of things that could go wrong while driving to write a reasonable book on the subject. Having that person sitting next to you commenting on your driving comes in handy, even if they do say things like, "good you were 6 for 7 on starting that round" (he's a numbers guy what can I say?),  "gotcha" (when the car stalls after you hit the break to avoid a pedestrian), or "don't worry about the cute boy over there, just breathe and go". (For the record it was my uncle sitting next to me.)

Yeah I got this...maybe

Throughout this adventure I not only did I learn a thing or two about driving (apparently enough to make it somewhere in a "pinch") but I also learned a little about the kind of knowledge that is passed from person to person, between "folks". The key to that kind of knowledge is the people. Not only can the people themselves be really interesting, but they seem to make up an entire subculture of people who posses "folk" skills.  They can do and teach absurdly cool things, that range from useless to save-you-in-the-event-of-a-zombie-apocalypse useful. Anciently we called them "elders" because they possessed all of the knowledge of all of the people, now we just call them the people who know "absurdly cool things, that range from useless to save-you-in-the-event-of-a-zombie-apocalypse useful".

That is the real secret of folk knowledge, learning folk knowledge is like an initiation, where you get to become one of the above mentioned really cool people.

For the second half of this project I am working on initiating someone myself into the subculture of looking-really-cool-while-fighting-in-the-zombie-apocalypse, other wise known as french braiding, so if you know anyone looking to learn, post about it down there, and hopefully I can get to you before the zombies! ;)