Different Minds
Mar. 13th, 2012 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stA year or more ago, I recommended a movie called "Temple Grandin" which tells the real-life story of a woman with autism, navigating the difficult world of Animal Science training in Midwestern universities. I related to Temple because she and I see the world of animals with a similar clarity, and both of us had to deal with learning from people who didn't understand what we did about animal behavior. I'm ashamed to say, that despite her more profound challenges, Temple managed to earn a place in the Animal Science world that eluded me.
Recently, I've come across a few articles discussing the sad loss of students with specialist minds in the American school systems. Standardized testing is for standardized, uniform, and therefore limited minds. It encourages us not to think things through. It also discourages original thinking patterns. I can relate to students who are lost in the system, because I know how difficult it is for people like me to learn in such settings. I was more handicapped by boredom and a lack of socialization than anything else. I cannot tell you how very easy it was for me to ace standardized testing, while learning nothing at all. I can tell you that my brother taught me how to test well when I was only 7 years old. I didn't really "light up" about schooling until I reached college, because I simply could not relate well to the extremely boring "learn it by rote" teaching methods used in my day.
And I was the well-adjusted one in my family. My brother, who has a very high IQ, dropped out of school over his lack of socialization. He was a know-it-all and bullied by teachers and he found social acceptance through music. So, of course, he chose music, instead of engineering. My sister tells me that her son, who regularly builds cars from spare parts, dropped out because of one teacher who ridiculed him for being dyslexic. I'm sure it was one teacher too many, but that's beside the point. And his little daughter just doesn't possess verbal skills, but is brilliant when it comes to puzzles and pretending. Already, at 5, she's struggling with socialization and teachers who are overburdened by crowded classrooms. They have no time to cultivate her real gifts. I don't blame the teachers for this...I blame all of us, our society and our values.
I've always thought that the real tragedy of keeping women or black people or infidels or immigrants uneducated is that by doing that we cut our own throats. What if the person who can cure cancer, who has that mind, is a woman in Afganistan right this minute? Or a child who was butchered in Rwanda a few years ago? Or a child being left behind by the fact that we have cut taxes for some rich man and put our faith solely in market values? Have we denied that child the right teacher? Human society fails to prosper from the loss of any intellectual resource. Our prejudices and our parsimony hold human society back in a very practical way.
Here...check out what Temple Gardin has to say about different minds and how very important the cultivation of those minds will be to the growth and prosperity of our society.
Recently, I've come across a few articles discussing the sad loss of students with specialist minds in the American school systems. Standardized testing is for standardized, uniform, and therefore limited minds. It encourages us not to think things through. It also discourages original thinking patterns. I can relate to students who are lost in the system, because I know how difficult it is for people like me to learn in such settings. I was more handicapped by boredom and a lack of socialization than anything else. I cannot tell you how very easy it was for me to ace standardized testing, while learning nothing at all. I can tell you that my brother taught me how to test well when I was only 7 years old. I didn't really "light up" about schooling until I reached college, because I simply could not relate well to the extremely boring "learn it by rote" teaching methods used in my day.
And I was the well-adjusted one in my family. My brother, who has a very high IQ, dropped out of school over his lack of socialization. He was a know-it-all and bullied by teachers and he found social acceptance through music. So, of course, he chose music, instead of engineering. My sister tells me that her son, who regularly builds cars from spare parts, dropped out because of one teacher who ridiculed him for being dyslexic. I'm sure it was one teacher too many, but that's beside the point. And his little daughter just doesn't possess verbal skills, but is brilliant when it comes to puzzles and pretending. Already, at 5, she's struggling with socialization and teachers who are overburdened by crowded classrooms. They have no time to cultivate her real gifts. I don't blame the teachers for this...I blame all of us, our society and our values.
I've always thought that the real tragedy of keeping women or black people or infidels or immigrants uneducated is that by doing that we cut our own throats. What if the person who can cure cancer, who has that mind, is a woman in Afganistan right this minute? Or a child who was butchered in Rwanda a few years ago? Or a child being left behind by the fact that we have cut taxes for some rich man and put our faith solely in market values? Have we denied that child the right teacher? Human society fails to prosper from the loss of any intellectual resource. Our prejudices and our parsimony hold human society back in a very practical way.
Here...check out what Temple Gardin has to say about different minds and how very important the cultivation of those minds will be to the growth and prosperity of our society.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-13 11:51 pm (UTC)I do think we've bought into this idea that there's only one right/best way to do things and trivializing, reducing support for, anything outside of what has been decided to be important.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-20 02:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-18 03:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-20 02:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-26 12:32 pm (UTC)