Hooked on Learning

FRED GARTH

For the past 25 years, Fred D. Garth’s articles have appeared in numerous books, magazines and newspapers around the world. Read his blog at: GuyHarveyMagazine.com.

Because this issue is dedicated to education, I’m compelled an endless array of apps and editing tools, students have to address the subject, even though school for me began transformed boats, beaches and camps into classrooms. The with lots of paddlings on the butt and ended with a fnal key is getting them outside to discover this amazing world. college class called Black Elk Speaks, in which we learned After a few years as a sports writer for a daily newspaper, how to build Sioux Indian sweat lodges by a river. I’m not I was fortunate enough to get a job as editor of a scuba kidding. I got two credits and learned how to chant Indian diving magazine. What a gig! I traveled around the world style. What can I say? I went to college in the granola state of writing about fsh and sharks and reefs and super cool Oregon. They do weird stuf out there. diving inventions. I snorkeled with humpback whales on The nice thing about that class was that most of it the Silver Bank near the Dominican Republic; I dived with was outside. We cut birch trees and skinned the bark. We schooling hammerheads in Cocos Island, Costa Rica; I collected rocks to put into the fre to heat the sweat lodges, explored the extraordinary reefs of Palau and its famous and we jumped into an ice-cold river. I think we were naked. Blue Corner; and I toured the world’s largest underwater The point is, it was a hands-on experience rather than graveyard in Truk Lagoon, Micronesia, where hundreds of studying books in the classroom. It illustrated what life after Japanese ships and submarines were bombed by British school was all about…learning by doing. and American bombers as retribution for Pearl Harbor. Did I Of course, back then, before personal computers learn? OMG! I learned history, science, geography, math, bits and the Internet, it was an either-or proposition. You did of diferent languages and culinary specialties. classroom work and went to the library for research, or Learning doesn’t stop when school ends. That’s when you went into the feld with a camera, pen and paper. It it really starts. So, kids, I say to you: Go forth and pursue was impossible to do both simultaneously. Now, in this something you love and keep learning every step of the way. extraordinary new digital world, we carry the library into Your life will be flled with satisfaction and great knowledge the feld in our pockets. Our smartphones can access that you can use to make the world a better place. any information we need. And, it’s a thousand times Speaking of which, I’d like to say something to all of faster than going through the card catalogue at a library, those people who worry that kids spend too much time which brings back with their faces in their phones…when I was a student, What can I say? I went traumatic memories my parents worried about me slouched in front of the of whispering to TV watching Gilligan’s Island after school every day for to college in the granola a librarian who two hours. Sure, kids abuse smartphones sometimes, but thought I was an watching the professor every week never hurt me. In fact, state of Oregon. They do idiot because I I learned that some people aren’t as smart as they seem. couldn’t spell Russian Maybe the professor had spent all his time in a classroom or weird stuff out there. author Fyodor lab and that’s why he could never fgure out how to get of Dostoevsky’s name. that stupid island. With streaming video in real time, GoPro cameras that I know what I would have done. I’d have used my flm underwater, smartphones with waterproof cases, and smartphone.

Artifcial reefs aren’t just for open water. New column-style reefs designed for shallow water are being put under docks to improve their fsh holding power. Photo: Walter Marine.

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