Community Engagement
The most valuable resource in our community is the people, including their time, knowledge, and energy.
School dads clubs are a great example of community involvement where dads perform maintenance and campus improvements with their time and tools. The school saves money. Dads teach their kids to have pride in local schools and learn skills and make friends in the process. School dads/moms/parents clubs are an example to follow and expand.
Parents generally want to impart knowledge upon the next generation to help them succeed. What if school could be supplemented with skill training during and/or after school by volunteers? Cavitt has flex time twice per week during the school day. Olympus has potential availability in the hour after school. Both have been discussed as potential pilot options in EUSD. Facilities are said to not be a problem. Some topics that I would like to teach are open source software and electronics. What skills will you volunteer to teach?
Moral, Honest, Inspiring, and Useful Curriculum
The curriculum adoption process does not happen on an island, and importantly includes parent and teacher feedback. Usually curriculum reviews are looking at books from one of a handful of large state approved vendors. Rather than leading with the big established vendors, what if teachers and schools were allowed more creative license for curriculum? Many I've spoken with have agreed that the following would enhance our childrens' education:
*Teach civics, including:
1) Public debate - thanks Olympus for having speech and debate!
2) Promoting community involvement with school board, city council, public utilities employees, board of supervisors, elected representatives, etc.
3) Ensuring a verifiable and honest voting system. Two good ideas are here and here.
4) That a Republic, the government of California and the United States, is our form of government, not Democracy. Why? Republics have codified unalienable rights not to be infringed upon by government. Republics protect the rights of the individual over the whims of the majority. Benjamin Franklin said "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch."
5) Understanding God given rights, how to protect them, and the proper relationship between People and government.
6) Learning to represent oneself in court proceedings to resolve conflicts with individuals or government
7) Educational family favorites for civics for young kids are the Tuttle Twins books and cartoons. The kids particularly enjoy the cartoons!
*Offer more hands-on practical skills. Students gain confidence when allowed to figure things out themselves. Practical skills may include: Cooking, gardening, sewing, woodworking, soil testing, food preservation (canning, dehydrating, salting, freeze drying), weaving, composting, plumbing, framing, wiring, soldering, building, radio broadcasting/communicating, navigating, caring for animals, etc.
*Propose more self-guided learning for projects in entrepreneurship, presentation, building/creating, and/or research and writing assignments. A great website for exploring ideas of personal interest is Survivor Library, which has more than 250GB of free books from the 1800's and early 1900's, and covers a huge range of practical topics. Yes, the site is a prepper site, and many of these books may be for an older readers, but they are filled with fascinating material, and some geared for kids. A huge range of additional book sources may be found here. Did I mention that the books are free?
*Teach the most important topic in the world, that is never taught in school - money. The Secret of Oz documentary describes the conditions for money working well (government issued debt free money where the quantity in circulation is kept in sync with population and production), or poorly (private bank issued money at interest, leading to mathematically impossible to pay off debt slavery). Over many centuries, the money issuing authority has been back and forth between public and private control. A detailed but concise article (video version) details all major wars, political upheavals, and presidential assassinations being due to these bankers wars. If everyone understood money creation and how to use civics to implement improvements to currency issuance, an honest money system could once again be created. This would end poverty, prevent war, and lead to a prosperous middle class and society.
*Practice interpersonal skills such as making eye contact, saying please/thank you, handshakes, door opening, helping others, and ethics
Information Search in Schools
The Internet is the most common method for students and parents to search for information. However, the information search is only as good as the constraints of the search engines used. Currently, only Google, who was declared a monopoly in Aug. 2024 by the DOJ, and Bing search engines are allowed for student use on EUSD campuses. Other search engines are blocked. I have found more interesting and useful content with the below search engines than ever before. Hopefully, with appropriate moderation, some of these alternative search engines may be whitelisted to provide a broader information search!
| Search Engine |
Description |
| 4get.ca |
has dropdown list of various search engines, including uncommon ones |
| alexandria.org |
uses common crawl independent index |
| search.brave.com |
unique index, good for finding local businesses while not using Google or Bing |
| search.marginalia.nu |
one person hosted index and search engine in Sweden, deprioritizes commercial sites and javascript sites, finds independent pages |
| metager.org |
uses Yahoo, Yandex, and Scopia, but now requires purchased tokens as of Sept. 2024. Since then I have not used it, but may in the future. Great privacy. With tokens, the cost is about 1.1 cents per search. What is your privacy worth? |
| mojeek.com |
based in UK, doesn't track users, unique index and results |
| searx.space |
searx and searxng are meta search engines that use multiple engines behind a common front page. searx.space is a list of searxng instances, each of which may use different engines, but you can also host your own and set your own set of engines |
| wiby.me |
fairly new search engine with own index, unique results |
| yacy.searchlab.eu |
decentralized search. Finds interesting things, but sometimes inapproriate content since sources are always changing |
| yandex.com |
Russia's #1 search engine, finds a lot of topics that Google does not, one of top engines, not as good for local things |
Open Source Software
Open source software means software that is free to use, that others have voluntarily shared with the world (donations are accepted for some projects, but are voluntary). Open source software is better than online-only software (talking to you Google):
1) Your information/files can be stored locally, protecting your privacy
2) You own your data, not a company or government
3) Open source software does not dial back home when on the Internet, sharing details about you to unknown entities
4) Open source software does not install updates against your wishes
5) Amazing operating systems and programs are free! You are not subject to ongoing subscription payments, and don't ever have to worry about paying for access to the tools that you spend time to learn
6) Becoming proficient in open source software is exhilarating
7) Open source software often is as good or better than expensive commercial offerings
8) Open source operating systems and programs run well on old, inexpensive hardware
Linux or BSD are open source operating system types. There are many flavors of Linux/BSD, and they are much faster, more secure, and more fun to use than Windows or Mac. Old/cheap computers for Linux/BSD are outlined here, where you can find details about <$100 used laptops for use with Linux/BSD. Finally, if you learn to use a Linux/BSD computer, you will naturally pick up more advanced computer knowledge and programming skill, advancing your skills and value beyond what is typically possible with Windows or Mac.
Some popular open source software examples include:
LibreOffice – free office suite to replace MS Office
Blender – 3D rendering, industry standard
Inkscape – vector graphics, I made my campaign signs and postcards with this!
GIMP or Krita – image modification and art
Kdenlive – video editing
KiCad – printed circuit board design as good as commercial offerings
FreeCAD – CAD program for making complex parametric 3D models
QGIS – geographic information system tool for learning to map anything
NextCloud – self-hosted "cloud" based synchronization of your files, images, etc.
My kids enjoy playing with all of the customization and free software that can be used with their linux computers. When they see a non-linux/BSD computer, they often say "that computer has a virus" (referring to the operating system) :)
