6/08/2018 ~ Monday
Childcraft
These educational series have become strangely important to me suddenly. Like a pre-established nostalgia through shared experiences, despite the fact that I never grew up with these books.
I found them in my old home,
Salmon manor.
In the hallway cupboard 3 and a half years ago.
Stacked and piled high, in amongst science year books and the world encyclopaedia.
They still have a musty smell, held from 1974. my Mother was 3. This is important for some reason.
I never had these books, but i wish that i had. There were so many questions that I would ask the adults around me, constantly curious constantly wondering how it was the things around me would take function and work and come into creation. Self learning was important. But i didn't really have the means to learn..
perhaps thats why school was so prevalent .. school was the only place I could gain my knowledge,
other than the 1961 Encyclopedia britanica series in my grandfathers hand build book shelf, specifically for that series. I could ask him things too, my grandfather knew everything, except his stories would be pertaining to fact, but also riddled with fiction, as a form of humour or jest. For many years i would go on to trust every adult in everything they said, I didn't see the need for them to deceive me.. proving a certain gullible(ness).. not long after i realised this was the case, I would fact check with my teachers. they would never bend truths. in the year 2002 I finally had my first computer, up until this point I had been using an old typewriter and practicing touch-typing and assignments on that. in 2003 I was gifted the encyclopaedia britanica on disc. This was my favourite thing. I didn't have the internet until 2007. I didn't know how to ask google of the random things that would pop into my head, because it got to the point where 'i don't know' became an appropriate answer.
I love learning.
And accidentally learning things.
The childcraft books were somehow a part of my childhood memories, despite their absence.
When I first found them, however, i was scared… Child-craft… was this some sort of wikkan cult that uses the child.. ..
Or was the series about the craft of child rearing..?
I didn't open the books, they didn't have any interest to me. Until after 3 years of living in that dated dwelling it was time to move on. I opened the books and flicked the pages, a world of knowledge that was under my roof, waiting to be absorbed, but protected by both the closed cover and hallway doors… The house gifted me a few items it seems, and old record, a mysterious VHS (yet to be watched) and this educational series.
My mentor outside of the institution is my old english teacher, he continues to teach me.. however, now i have the skills to educate myself. this was the outcomes of feeling like i wasn't learning much in both school and in uni, so I took it upon myself to keep up the momentum.
My university mentor mentions elements that circumnavigate 'safe learning' an important element to the child of the troubled home.
I'm now obsessed, wanting to find the two volumes that i am missing, wanting to percure older or newer series and see how they differ from each other.. what was important, what wasn't.
I began seeing correlations between my works and the categories in the books..
I can almost reduce everything i've ever made into a chapter of the child craft books.
Useful Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childcraft
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/north-albury/children-s-books/world-book-childcraft/1189838216
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/ferntree-gully/children-s-books/childcraft-encyclopedia-vintage-library-childrens-family/1161870860