What they never taught us
“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” Voltaire (1694-1778)
We learned in school and college that the teacher furnishes the question and the answer that will fit the question. If we want to continue to learn after our schooling is over what must we do?
Bootstrap is defined as: designed to function independently of outside direction—capable of using one internal function or process to control another.
For a 12 to 18 years period from the age of 6 to our mid twenties we have lived constantly in an educational system wherein we seldom if ever learned to function intellectually independent of outside direction.
How is it possible for such an individual to develop the internal processes (bootstrap) that allow him or her to become an independent, critically self-conscious, thinker?
When schooling is over the citizen who wishes to reach beyond naive common sense reality must develop the ability to generate questions. Questions result from a critical self-conscious intellect and depend upon the priorities of that intellect. Formal education has always furnished the learner with a question for consideration. The question asked determines the knowledge achieved and the understanding created.
The self-actuated learner must develop the ability to create questions. We have never before given any thought to questions; but now, if we wish to take a journey of discover, we must learn the most important aspect of any educational process. We must create questions that will guide our travels. After our school daze are over we can no longer depend upon education by coercion to guide us; we have the opportunity to develop self-actualizing self-learning driven by the ‘ecstasy of understanding’.
Full Version: What they never taught us
Interesting post.
In education institutions below college the "create" part of our brain is completely neglected. They don't teach us to use our own brain but rather memorize how someone else uses his. It was not until philosophy class in college that i was finally taught to think.
In education institutions below college the "create" part of our brain is completely neglected. They don't teach us to use our own brain but rather memorize how someone else uses his. It was not until philosophy class in college that i was finally taught to think.
QUOTE(zhenka11230 @ Nov 18, 2007, 06:50 AM) 
Interesting post.
In education institutions below college the "create" part of our brain is completely neglected. They don't teach us to use our own brain but rather memorize how someone else uses his. It was not until philosophy class in college that i was finally taught to think.
In philosophy class one learns how to become a Critical Thinker. Unfortunatly we need to start that process in the first grade. I suspect fewer than 5% of the population knows anything about CT (Critical Thinking) because few people take philosophy in college.
QUOTE(coberst @ Nov 18, 2007, 11:23 AM)
QUOTE(zhenka11230 @ Nov 18, 2007, 06:50 AM)
Interesting post.
In education institutions below college the "create" part of our brain is completely neglected. They don't teach us to use our own brain but rather memorize how someone else uses his. It was not until philosophy class in college that i was finally taught to think.
In philosophy class one learns how to become a Critical Thinker. Unfortunatly we need to start that process in the first grade. I suspect fewer than 5% of the population knows anything about CT (Critical Thinking) because few people take philosophy in college.
In out college it is mandatory to take "into to philosophy" which is basically Combination of a few texts about Epistemology(Descartes Meditations), topics such as Empiricism, Nativism, Rationalism, Duality, Physicalism, Ethics, Metaphysics(Existence of God). I was very surprised to find out that i was the top student in my class. The whole participation of the class was just me and few others but their questions were rooted in complete lack of understanding of the topics. It was an extremely basic philosophy class yet it gave a lot of difficulty to people which shows that Americans are not trained properly in CT.
I want to break down CT into creative CT and destructive CT. Creative CT is ability to create something new while Destructive is ability to criticize. Both are extremely important and are very different in their nature of developing.
I showed small abilities to criticize a few years ago but it was only recently that even a slight growth of Creativity could be spotted in me(what i call creativity is an idea that is completely new and original).
It is no wonder there are so many religious zealots in America. I will argue that Psychology and Philosophy are the most important subjects to teach people because it teaches people HOW to use the tools of knowledge (such as math). Just math alone will only give them the tool(knowledge) which will be useless unless trained to use.
I would argue that history is the most important subject to teach people, as any philosophy or psychology class you will take is only the history of philosophy or psychology respectively.
I think that Logic 101 taught by the phlosophy dept is something that should be taught to every high school student.
QUOTE(Flex @ Nov 18, 2007, 01:27 PM)
I would argue that history is the most important subject...
QUOTE(coberst @ Nov 18, 2007, 09:23 AM)
QUOTE(zhenka11230 @ Nov 18, 2007, 06:50 AM)
Interesting post.
In education institutions below college the "create" part of our brain is completely neglected. They don't teach us to use our own brain but rather memorize how someone else uses his. It was not until philosophy class in college that i was finally taught to think.
In philosophy class one learns how to become a Critical Thinker. Unfortunatly we need to start that process in the first grade. I suspect fewer than 5% of the population knows anything about CT (Critical Thinking) because few people take philosophy in college.
The education system is designed to create a workforce, not to empower people or to get them to question their governments actions. From the very beginning they are taught to believe what the authorities tell them, whether it be teachers or politicians. It is not a flaw of the system, it is the way the system was designed to work.
My main selling point since leaving school has been my ability to be dropped into situations and to learn everything about a role from the wise people around me. What this boils down to is my ability to learn. I've been in many situations where I've felt out of my depth for a week or so then it all begins to become clear as I take the learned knowledge and use it in new and better ways. This has got me where I am today, and I actually become slightly depressed when I am not in a situation that is a little stressful, or there is nothing new to learn.
My colleagues have often found it humourous the amount of questions I ask, particularly when I was first being 'trained' in coding. My mentor wasn't so much a mentor as a person to direct my questions to, whilst I was given a text book with examples in and told to 'go nuts'. The poor bloke was overworked before I started asking questions. I was took into the office and told I shouldn't be asking so many!
In my current role it was the same story. I was dropped in out of my depth and spent a month finding my feet and learning another 3 IT technologies. At the end of this period the office had the joke that I'd been banned from 'Ask Jeeves', the question search engine.
I look up to people who use their abilities well, I look to learn from them as much as possible. If this means asking a ridiculous amount of questions, then so be it. I would much rather work with someone who asks questions and displays a natural curiosity, than someone who pretends to know the answer and screws things up for everyone.
Work is kind of forced onto us in schooling, which dampens this curious nature. I have faith that it resurfaces again in most people in the right situations
My colleagues have often found it humourous the amount of questions I ask, particularly when I was first being 'trained' in coding. My mentor wasn't so much a mentor as a person to direct my questions to, whilst I was given a text book with examples in and told to 'go nuts'. The poor bloke was overworked before I started asking questions. I was took into the office and told I shouldn't be asking so many!
In my current role it was the same story. I was dropped in out of my depth and spent a month finding my feet and learning another 3 IT technologies. At the end of this period the office had the joke that I'd been banned from 'Ask Jeeves', the question search engine.
I look up to people who use their abilities well, I look to learn from them as much as possible. If this means asking a ridiculous amount of questions, then so be it. I would much rather work with someone who asks questions and displays a natural curiosity, than someone who pretends to know the answer and screws things up for everyone.
Work is kind of forced onto us in schooling, which dampens this curious nature. I have faith that it resurfaces again in most people in the right situations
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