The Grim Old Days: Education

If you are reading this, you possess an ability that many people throughout history never had the chance to develop. In The Grim Old Days, Chelsea Follett describes a world where schooling was limited, books were expensive, and learning to read was beyond the reach of many ordinary people. Imagine having questions about the world but being unable to look up the answers—or even read a letter from your family.

Girls faced especially strong barriers. Some people considered educating a daughter a waste, while others viewed an educated woman with suspicion. Follett cities records from one English diocese around 1600 suggesting that only 6 percent of women could sign their names, compared with 52 percent of men. Even signing a name, however, didn’t necessarily mean someone could read and write much else. Illiteracy restricted opportunity and could leave people dependent on others for the simplest communication.

8 Books themselves were treasures. Before printing and inexpensive paper, producing a manuscript required extraordinary labor and costly materials. Follett notes that a 150-page parchment manuscript could require the skins of about a dozen sheep. Today, we can carry an entire library in a pocket. Knowledge that once required wealth and privilege is often available in seconds.

What an opportunity we have. Yet access alone doesn’t make us wiser. We still have to open the book, study the lesson, and put an idea to work. Today, take fifteen minutes to learn something useful. Generations before us would have treasured the chance.

The Grim Old Days: Learning

Imagine walking three or four miles to school, only to face a teacher who believed beating children helped them learn. In The Grim Old Days, Chelsea Follett describes classrooms where physical punishment was routine. In some colonial New England schools, children whose families failed to supply firewood were seated farthest from the fire. Even getting an education could mean enduring cold, fear, and pain.

Yet many children never had that opportunity at all. Schooling was limited, and much of the population could neither read nor write. Girls faced additional barriers because educating them was often considered unnecessary or even undesirable. Being unable to read meant depending on someone else to explain a document, deliver a written message, or provide access to knowledge.

Books were scarce and expensive, too. Printing gradually made books more accessible, helping knowledge spread. Today, libraries, schools, and inexpensive digital resources put learning within reach on a scale our ancestors could scarcely imagine.

We have plenty to improve in education. But we also have an extraordinary opportunity to educate ourselves throughout our lives. We can study a skill, explore an idea, or learn from someone we will never meet. Take advantage of that today. Open a book. Follow your curiosity. Having the chance to learn is a privilege; using it can change your life.

The Grim Old Days – Childhood

Keep the Lesson, Lose the Label

Something you failed at is not the same as something you are.

Learn from a setback without turning it into an identity.

When I was 11 I joined Little League. I was a small, skinny kid compared to the other kids. My family had no money and my stepfather was not around.  I found a glove in my grandfather’s basement in an apple basket with a bunch of softballs that were very old – most of them having the leather falling off them.  This glove was from the 1920’s or something.  The fingers were very fat, and the webbing between the thumb and fingers was a tiny patch held on with two old brittle strands of rawhide.  The ball could fit through the openings in the sides of the web.  I went to tryouts by myself.  They were hitting balls to us in the field and watching.  I could not catch with that glove.  Another Dad saw the situation and felt sorry for me.  He took the brand new red leather Rawlings glove from his son and let me borrow it for ten minutes.

When I was 12, I aged out of the farm team and had to go to the majors.  I was ok at fielding, but I couldn’t hit well. After three games or so, the team manager put me BACK down into the farm team with the little kids.  I was humiliated.  Embarrassed.  But I did not quit. I remember the farm manager and the major manager arguing.  The farm team manager was telling the major team manager he couldn’t do that and that he had to take me back.

I went back to the major team.  At the end of the season, the yearbook comes out with everyone’s batting average in order, top to bottom.  I was on the bottom.  .069.  I did not quit.  I was 80 pounds.  The pitcher had a beard.  The next year – .087.  

You may have made a bad decision, lost, quit, or fallen short.  Learn from the event- but don’t introduce yourself to the future using yesterday’s label.

A scar records an injury, but it also proves the wound closed.  Remember what happened without living as though you are still bleeding.

Through these and other terrible experiences, I learned my superpower.

40 years later I became the oldest finisher of perhaps the hardest feat in motorsports – the Baja 1000 on a dirt bike – 34 hours solo, non-stop – where the number one most important thing you need to do to finish is – not quit.

Motivation = Value + Expectancy

Motivation = Value + Expectancy

Motivation = This has a lot of value for me, this would be really great + Expectancy

Motivation = Value + The degree I believe this will happen/come true.

If an outcome does not have a lot of value to someone, if they don’t care about it, they will not be motivated to get it.

If something has value but they do not believe it can or will come true, they are not motivated.

But to the degree that an outcome has value to a person AND they believe it will come true, they will be motivated.

Think about some of your goals that you have been chasing, wholly or intermittently.

How valuable is the result to you, and how much do you believe it will come true?

Have you been trying to motivate others?  Think about how valuable the result is to them and how much they believe it can come true. 

Can you modify those variables?