Educational know-how?

I spent this past weekend (and yes, posting because of it) mingling and socializing with an entire rainbow of people. There were Texans, New Yorkers, Brits, hicks, lawyers, doctors, tv reporters, children, and later on fairies, ghouls, Frankenstein, and his bride. The shared connection between the walks of life boiling down to one of two __ around which the day revolves, in good reason. All there to celebrate together, co-mingled minds from different landscapes and air temperatures, common ground found to stand on upon fake grass beneath our feet. Most of the day was spent skipping between walks of life of the elite as food from the sea fueled the many happy faces under the white plastic sky that shielded us from the poor bout of weather that graces us. I mention the scene, none other than upon a hill and drenched by nightfall, because as I spoke with and opened up to the room, the different philosophies on learning and living were remarkable. Here is a room filled with an entire Montessori school full of children, millionaires who never finished high school, well-educated fathers known to stop at every passing historical marker on the side of the road, and improv actors. It was an interesting mix of people, and I took the opportunity to try and compare differing views of people and test the waters of recognition of topics we've been discussing in class. One thing I wanted to know was if people, mostly my age and younger, had ever heard of Second Life. I was surprised to learn that only one other person had ever heard of it, as I was getting the impression it was a growing forum for youngsters on the internet. My cousin, Eve, who goes to Princeton, was actually the only one who had ever heard of it, as Princeton had a large chunk of change to build an entire University island in Second Life. Nonetheless, it does not seem like it will be getting used anytime in the near future, as the technology is too poor right now to make it accessible to most.
Another thing I was thinking about as I was talking to the myriads of people at the wedding was how we were all literate in small literacy surrounding the kind of work the company does (my aunt and her now husband own a company for which just about every family member has worked at some point). It's interesting because it's such an obscure little sect of business that deals with mold remiadiation and biological contaminant removal. They fumigated the Capitol building when there was the anthrax contamination, as well as the Media building down in Florida, where the original Elvis death picture was housed, and that received the first anthrax letter (I actually got to work on that one!). For us, the jargon of the business, words such as chlorine dioxide, emitters, wet lab, titration, scrubbing, gooseneck trailer, scotland anthrax, and 16-hour-shifts are commonplace, and they all bring specific images to our minds which we all share. It is always interesting to be around someone who is not familiar with the business and watch them be completely confused as to what's going on around them when they socialize with the company/family. I think taking a class in literacy has caused me to think sometimes about the literacies in which we're partaking personally, and come to realize how they are so learned by experience and circumstance. I may be rambling a bit now, but it becomes very apparent to me when I hang out with this side of my family how much the traditional view of literacy comes out in the members of the family. There is a large focus with the children who are still in high school to preserve the old ways, as they have no televisions and everyone in the family is avid readers, many of them devoid of cell phones. It's pretty refreshing to be around them, but if I weren't well-educated, well-read, and had a lot of different experiences under my belt, I fear the experience would not be the same.