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Part 6:  Necessary Components for Community Sustainability

Education

Education is about to undergo a fundamental change for the young. For them it will become much more focused. When a community is attempting to overcome financial catastrophe, there will be no room or resources to support superfluous transmission of knowledge to unwilling students.  There will be no time to teach how the pueblos made mud huts or the attempt to educate most individuals in algebra or geometry.  In a very real sense, the concept of enforced mass education is about to come to an end. 

The system that the last six generations of Americans have been subjected to, will be replaced by something akin to apprenticeships. However, this new system will be profoundly different from what was in the past. It will involve the transmission of a much deeper understanding of the subject that the young person will have chosen and which will be the basis of his or her future.  For example, those that will learn how to maintain, expand and improve upon the manufacturing of metals from silicates will require a deep operational understanding of chemistry, thermal dynamics and physics. Those that enter medicine will need deep understanding of biological systems.  And so forth and so on.   

In essence, education in a very true sense will become pragmatic. It will become operationally driven for the young person.

Two last points also need to be made concerning education.  In this day and age it has been taken for granted that the most important thing to be provided to the child from age 5 to 18 is what humanity has acquired in the form of knowledge.  This, however, is profoundly flawed.  In fact, under the age of 10, education is a distant second to the primary process that a child needs to undergo. 

Between birth and puberty a child needs to undergo the process of proper emotional and psychological development.  Education is a distant second to this primary process.  An individual who reaches 12 years of age and is emotionally stable can be effectively and profoundly educated from the ages of 12 to 20.  At the end of this education period, that individual will be ready to become a major producer in the local community.

Children who have been made to learn a large number of often irrelevant and disconnected facts as a substitute for true education, are often emotionally and psychologically damaged in the process. In this condition, there is little hope of passing on the needed knowledge of production in order to make the individual a major producer in the 4^th Industrial Revolution. 

History teaches of only one sure way to produce strong individuals, and that is through a loving home. In fact, the primary purpose of setting up a home is to create an environment capable of meeting the essential psychological needs of the growing child. When this is done correctly, it produces an individual who will be ready with the onset of puberty to begin learning what the community has to offer.

The second point that needs to be made concerning education is that general education is not going to disappear.  Rather, general education will be vital not to the child but to the adult that has reached a level of maturity capable of appreciating it.  In fact, this education of maturing adults will be essential to the long term stability of the community.  For it is this knowledge that older individuals acquire, that will give them the foresight and understanding to make the wise decisions necessary to preserve and protect civilization.  Once this comes about, the old adage, which has lost a lot of its meaning today, will come back in full force:  “Respect your elders,” for if they have passed through all the stages of education, they will be worthy of respect.

Clean Water Production and Delivery
Food
Shelter and Transportation
Lighting
Heating
Clothing
Medicine
Sanitation and Waste Disposal
Generation of Raw Materials
Chemical Processing
Processing of Raw Materials - Tool and Die
Communication
Computing Technology
Education
Maintaining of Standards
Justice
Defense

Part 7: Our Future Under the Fourth Industrial Revolution

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