Tradition and Skipping Stones

 These days the USA enjoys quite an educated population according to a Census Bureau press release. "Last year, 85 percent of adults age 25 and over had completed at least high school, an all-time high, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. Also in 2003, 27 percent of adults age 25 and over had a college degree, another record."

 Another press release reports that 49% of 18- and 19-year-olds enrolled in college in 2005. With all this school-learning one might assume that ancient pedagogical methods are now dead, but then one would be dead wrong.  Even in the 21st century, in one of the most developed countries in the world, tradition still plays a large part in education for a career. In many cases it is because there is no reasonable substitute, as in medicine, music and the trades. Even candidates for a Ph.D achieve their goal through an apprenticeship.

 The word tradition is derived directly from the Latin verb for "to hand down".  What else is handed down in this modern age?  Well, children's games for example, children teach children who in turn teach the next crop of children.  The turnover from "generation to generation" in this case is a matter of a few years as compared to apprenticeship, which culminates sometime in adulthood thus requiring perhaps 25 or 30 years to turn an art or science over to a new generation.

   Amusing myself on the Pacific shore I picked up some small flat stones and flung them one at at time at a very shallow angle, letting them go with a quick flick of the wrist to give them a spin. Ah!  Bonk-bonk-bonk-bonk-bonk. That was a five-jumper -- very satisfying!  I admire endlessly the paradox of a heavy stone skipping across water.  I ask myself "When did I learn to do this?  Who taught me?"  I don't know.  Lost in the mists of childhood dreamtime. Tradition.