Dear Elizabeth, et al,
I get my brains from my father's side, who originally was Flemish, but,
being Mennonite, they left Flanders about the same time lace arrived. They
were farmers, and good farmers, but never anything else that we know of,
until my father's generation. Daddy grew up in southwest Minnesota, which
was a desert of intellectual stimulation. Daddy didn't work farm after he
hurt his back at the age of 20, so he went to college, as it was free and
the town doctor suggested it. Became a thermonuclear physicist. Otherwise
he'd have remained a farmer. One should never underestimate those in former
generations who were 'just' farmers, or lacemakers, or mothers, or peasant
types of any sort. Who never went far in school, like my father's father
with a third grad education who could add 4 columns in his head. Given the
right soil, those seeds can blossom in all kinds of ways. It's like the
legal secretaries of my mother's generation (born 1912) who today would be
the barristers and solicitors. There are a lot of reasons why one does not
enter the professions, including expectations and circumstances which do not
necessarily include intellectual ability. So one thinks one cannot do it,
when that's not necessarily so.
Elizabeth, I bet if we actually met, I could convince you that you know and
use more non-number mathematical skills than you think you have. You just
don't use those terms.
Lyn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA, where I've been typing for 2 hours and
it's time for breakfast.
Elizabeth wrote:
I'm with you, Maureen. I was never good at maths - I'm still not!! But I
Can make lace!!!
If you look back at History, (and I am not too bad with that subject!!)
Very few people went to school,. They could add and subtract, probably, very
well, as they were skills needed for every day living, but further maths was
never on the horizon, even.
Most worked with their hands - lacemakers among them, but they were very
creative, and solved problems amazingly well - otherwise we would still be
making Le Pompe sort of lace, - not the complex laces we create (or try to!)
today. I think having formal maths etc is really not much of a help. Those
of us not good at maths can still make beaut lace, - and solve any problems
that present themselves.
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