Teaching and Learning

A lot of what we write about here is done as a form of education. We're trying to show you what has worked for us (or others) in order to give you a reference point or starting point for your own response to a crisis. We do some product reviews and report our honest feelings about the results of our testing. We recount personal and historical events as a demonstration of what could and/or did go right and/or wrong. We're here to teach, and I assume you're here to learn.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know everything. I'm a generalist with a good understanding of a wide variety of things, but detailed knowledge of only a few. None of us here are “experts”; we've never claimed to be and likely never will. We're playing the role of “teachers”. I use the term “playing” because none of us are actual educators by trade, nor do we have the baggage that comes with a typical student/teacher relationship. We won't talk down to you and we're open to comments and (polite) criticism. If we're ever wrong about something, show us the error and we'll correct it. We have experience in certain fields, mostly job-related, that we want to share because we realize that no one person can do everything. We've all enjoyed camping, shooting, and other outdoor activities so we all have some common experiences, but we're all a bit different:

• Erin is our editrix, mainly because she started this blog and she has the best grasp of grammar and composition. She also has the dubious pleasure of cleaning up some of the word salads that the other writers can produce.
• Firehand is a good metal-smith and has experience gained through years of practice that most of us don't have the time to duplicate. No reason to re-invent the wheel if you can learn about it from someone who has already done it.
• David is well versed in “starting over” due to his life experiences.  He's also a good generalist with regards to life skills. 
• Lokidude has been prepping in one way or another his entire life, it's just part of him now. He has more "outdoors" skills than most of the rest of us.
• The Discerning Shootist is fairly new here, but his levels of expertise is certain fields will become evident as time goes on. 
• My training is in the sciences and math, with a healthy dose of growing up working on farms (the two are not mutually exclusive - I use more math, biology, chemistry, and physics every day than most people would think). 
• Once in a while we get guest authors  who have specialist knowledge that they would like to pass along, and we're always open to new guest articles (without guaranteeing that they will be used).

You, as a reader, are playing the role of student. You're here to learn something new or maybe a new way to do something. Take notes, interact with the teachers, ask questions, maybe join our Facebook group and meet others like yourself.

• I say "take notes" because most of the emergencies that we are all trying to prepare for are going to involve a lack of internet. Having notes on paper or stored on a local device ensures that you will be able to access the information even if you can't pull up the website.
• Interact with us. We like getting comments because it's one of the few ways we have of knowing that anyone is reading our stuff. The admins have access to some analytical tools, but they're not a convenient way of getting feedback. We're human and like to be acknowledged once in a while.
• If any of us are unclear on something, please ask for clarification. We're not going to belittle anyone who has an honest question (conspiracy theories don't count) and someone will try to answer your question. Different people learn in different ways, so we're flexible in how we present information.
• The FB group has rules, but they're not draconian. The rules are actually a lot like the ones we have imposed upon ourselves here at the blog. No politics, little to no advertising (the few ads we have along the right side of the page don't pay much), no spam, and no promoting other sites are the main rules. We do our best to weed out the 'bots and spammers before allowing them into the group, the few who make it through the vetting process get booted quickly. Having a half-dozen moderators that check the page several times a day means we can stomp on the spammers efficiently. Some of us enjoy that part of the job (a few enjoy it a bit too much).

Basically, our goal at this blog is to give you more than a helping of free ice cream. We want to share knowledge with you, knowing that doing so is often a two-way street. We'll keep doing our best to provide our readers a fresh, non-political, maybe even unique, article every weekday while hoping to learn a few things ourselves.