On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 19:18:13 GMT, Rosalie B.
wrote:


There are lots of teachers in lots of places that are teaching lots of
stuff that 'ain't so'. It's a hazard of life, and not particular to
the USCGX or the USPS or any other venue. One of my children's 5th
grade teachers taught them that the blood in the veins is actually
bright blue like in the illustrations. And some songs teach that a
square is not a rectangle.

One of the things that one does is to integrate what one already knows
into what they are telling you and if it doesn't compute, you question
them until they admit defeat!!! (or throw you out of class - I had one
teacher in a course I took as an adult that said I was every teacher's
nightmare)


I took a CGAUX course in the late 1970s, when I had been sailing for
15 years. I learned quite a bit. I had previously taken a Coastal
Navigation course at the American Museum of Nat Hist. I got a second
instructor because the class was oversubscribed, and I got taught some
that wasn't so.

However, by that time I could tell. The text was Duttons.

I joined the auxiliary and taught until this year, when I retired. The
requirements added on by Homeland Security were getting to be a bit
much.

I never got a uniform.

The Aux courses, and the similar USPS courses, teach far more than
many people know who buy a boat and go. Especially with motor boats,
but also with club racing sailboats.

In all the time I taught, Nobody (except me :-) ever aced the test.
Even my wife got one question wrong.

Still, such a course mainly exposes you to a series of topics that
anyone should know a lot more about, but it also guides the student
toward further learning.

The problem of people teaching things that aren't so, or are
oversimplified enough to be misleading, is everywhere.It is
exacerbated by volunteer instructors. But it isn't bad enough to make
the courses worthless.


Rodney Myrvaagnes J36 Gjo/a

The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the
simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.
- Richard Dawkins, "Viruses of the Mind"