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Tool, Ability, Skill

I love words and concepts and "isness" (ontology).

Someone, elsewhere here, said "reading is a tool." I said no, reading is an ability, a skill.

Reading is hard for people to think about objectively, even unschoolers. I want to run an analogy, please here:

Reading music. Reading musical notation.
Tool? Skill? Ability?
A drumstick is a tool. A tuning key for a harp is a tool. The ability to read music—especially to read it fluently—is a skill that involves more than one ability, perhaps.

So I think reading is a skill. But "the ability to read" sounds right, too.

Driving a car is a skill that takes more than one ability, at first. After all of those things are combined and driving smoothly and safely and confidently has been accomplished, then driving is an ability.

Driving isn't a tool. An automobile isn't a tool—it's a conveyance, and a machine / contraption. 😊

Clarity leads to more clarity.

Sandra, March 2018, FB group

Is phonics "a tool"? In a way, it is.

People talk about having "a parenting toolbox," and those are all ideas.

"Tools and tricks" is a phrase I've used for those kinds of"tools" (or tricks).

Can an idea be a tool?



When I was a kid, humans used tools and that made us human, but that's no longer "the truth." Chimpanzees can use a leaf as a sponge to gather water out of a hole. They will lick a stick and put it down a hole to collect insects (termites? ants? I don't know what). They will move things to climb up on to get something they can't reach.

Marty says he thinks maybe elephants will pick up a stick to knock something down that's higher than their trunks. If they haven't, they should.

So what, these days, are "tools"? My computer? Google? Wikipedia? Blogger.com? My new glasses? That electric teakettle I'm about to go and heat water with?

We talk about parenting tools, and people adding to their toolboxes, and those are all in the realm of thought (and action proceeding from thought, but without physical tools).

"Tools" (on the Thinking Sticks blog)
photo by Holly Dodd
Little Tools for an Epic Life
Clarity Real Learning Being