01-24-2013, 04:58 PM
I think that a lot of why we learn or not, comes down to attitude and that a good attitude is born out of desire to learn or to achieve a (desired) goal.
In the UK I think many kids are sick to death of education by the time they reach 7 or 8 yrs old because we push them too early - before they are ready to start, so they are effectively being force fed something they don't want and get into a habit of shutting their minds. This then is a (negative) habit they take into higher education.
The other aspect is what Billy is talking about above. Everyone being different and having different levels of different types of intellect. This should be what makes for an interesting society, but again in the UK education system, being different is squeezed out of the kids (not by the teachers but the system) so that they all fit into some sort of homogenous blur. The results are either brain dead robots or labelled "trouble". We need to allow more kids to colour outside of the lines...or encourage the attitude of cussed, stubborn grit that can stand up to the pressure to conform. A high IQ is vastly overrated, especially when it is formulaic and not given free rein to be quirky, give me individual and interesting any day.
To answer cards' original thread / thought I think, at the risk of a few rolling eyes, i would quote this forum as bing the most recent place where i have been taught or discovered / taught something to myself. It is in line with this current line of discussion, in that i came to the site with (and still have) a chip on my shoulder about not fitting in with society and not wanting to fit in but equally feeling rejected by and angry at said society.
I came onto the forum with these ideas, not appreciating that a vast % of poets are people who do not fit into the box. The thing i am finally grasping (at least about relating within this place) is that my knee jerk reaction is as based in my preconcieved ideas of what people are, based on how intelligent they appear to me from my own assesment of myself. so when I read a poem or crit that is above my level of understanding i'm threatened by it. The change that has come is to learn to sit back and breathe for a day and see how it plays out before i jump to my normal conclusions. I still get the knee jerk reactions. What i see playing out on this site is that from time to time there are other knee jerk reactions as well. This is very comforting. So if one person shoots from the hip or another uses his perception of the truth as a sledge hammer, these are just interesting and individual people rounding off a few rough edges and I know i'm in the right place to learn. I just need to go and drink another cup of tea or wine (time dependant) before I make a comment
In the UK I think many kids are sick to death of education by the time they reach 7 or 8 yrs old because we push them too early - before they are ready to start, so they are effectively being force fed something they don't want and get into a habit of shutting their minds. This then is a (negative) habit they take into higher education.
The other aspect is what Billy is talking about above. Everyone being different and having different levels of different types of intellect. This should be what makes for an interesting society, but again in the UK education system, being different is squeezed out of the kids (not by the teachers but the system) so that they all fit into some sort of homogenous blur. The results are either brain dead robots or labelled "trouble". We need to allow more kids to colour outside of the lines...or encourage the attitude of cussed, stubborn grit that can stand up to the pressure to conform. A high IQ is vastly overrated, especially when it is formulaic and not given free rein to be quirky, give me individual and interesting any day.
To answer cards' original thread / thought I think, at the risk of a few rolling eyes, i would quote this forum as bing the most recent place where i have been taught or discovered / taught something to myself. It is in line with this current line of discussion, in that i came to the site with (and still have) a chip on my shoulder about not fitting in with society and not wanting to fit in but equally feeling rejected by and angry at said society.
I came onto the forum with these ideas, not appreciating that a vast % of poets are people who do not fit into the box. The thing i am finally grasping (at least about relating within this place) is that my knee jerk reaction is as based in my preconcieved ideas of what people are, based on how intelligent they appear to me from my own assesment of myself. so when I read a poem or crit that is above my level of understanding i'm threatened by it. The change that has come is to learn to sit back and breathe for a day and see how it plays out before i jump to my normal conclusions. I still get the knee jerk reactions. What i see playing out on this site is that from time to time there are other knee jerk reactions as well. This is very comforting. So if one person shoots from the hip or another uses his perception of the truth as a sledge hammer, these are just interesting and individual people rounding off a few rough edges and I know i'm in the right place to learn. I just need to go and drink another cup of tea or wine (time dependant) before I make a comment