- Jun 13, 2015
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Wow, Gandalf. This is a fork off the topic of writing Christian literature, but a very important fork.Thanks. I'm now in my mid 50s. One of my biggest regrets in life is that it's only been in the past 5 years or so that I've truly learned how best to self-teach myself. Sigh, if I'd have known what I do now back when I was 20.... A B.S. in education, a Ph.D. in physics, lots of experience teaching adults, having self-taught myself a lot of things, but in hindsight, I was terribly inefficient at it in spite of being very persistent and being a fast learner. For a time I was an active musician (and worship leader) that was largely self-taught. It was that experience that lead me in this direction of thinking.
I tend to blame the western education system. At its core, it's really about training the masses to be good citizens and employees that can maintain and advance the status quo. Talented and gifted are usually accelerated through (so as to brag about graduating early) and getting into the workforce quicker. It wasn't until I worked as an engineer for a manufacturing company that I saw the similarities between manufacturing processes for making widgets and the education system. If you want to learn something new, you are basically put into an assembly line. You learn topic one, and then quality assurance (i.e. testing) is done to make sure you are adequate at it and that the teacher and process are doing their job. Then you can move on to topic two. Want to go out of order, well...that isn't allowed, you'll probably pick up bad habits and do it wrong. Experts have defined the order everything must be done so as to maximize the number of "successful graduates" of the process and insure quality control. It took me a long time to figure out how to break free of that mindset.
The net result is a population full of people who now lack the confidence to go out and learn something completely new thinking that they lack the "talent" for it. How many people started "piano lessons" (i.e. keep practicing Mary Had a Little Lamb over and over) and quit because after playing enough "wrong" notes they were convinced they had no "musical talent"? How many people believe they have no ability to learn foreign languages (this is prevalent in the US) because a couple years of memorizing vocabulary lists and grammar paradigms (and nothing to show for it except barely being able to say Hi, My Name is ...) left them with the feeling that language learning is for people with a special gift for it.
People's exposure to literature often involves being forced to read a few particular choices (out of the several hundred to thousands available) and then having to do literature critiques, tests on content, essays on weird comparisons of things using terms no one can remember. There are so many classics of different genres available. Most anyone could find some story that they would enjoy (whether reading "real" books, or online, or audio books). When someone's first introduction to Shakespeare is memorizing Mark Antony's "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech from Julius Caesar and then being testing on it by having to recite it from memory in front of the class, they're not going to be a big fan of any classical literature.
With modern technology and a few hundred dollars of software and peripherals, it's possible for anyone to enter the world of graphic novels, illustration, animations, e-books, music videos, art, whatever to start telling stories. I believe that many people with good stories to tell could start off small and develop their story telling skills using many forms. However, many of them don't know where to start, and end up signing up for a traditional formal class (of the Mary Had a Little Lamb piano lesson style) and being discouraged away from it when they find they are making so many "mistakes" that they decide they don't have the "talent" for it.
I think the church could start a revolution in western culture by encouraging people and showing them how to self-educate. This is something that's been on my heart for some time and will probably be a large part of what I do with the rest of my life. There are many believers with stories to tell and gifts to share that have been convinced by the world that it's something that they cannot be any good at.
FWIW, I've decided to start writing stories for my new granddaughter and to illustrate them myself. I've got no real art background other than some image editing and data visualization. I've now been practicing digital art averaging a few hours per day for the past month or so. I've uploaded my latest practice piece. If I'd been going at this the "traditional" way, I'd probably still be spending most of my time practicing straight lines, and circles from various perspectives and probably would have already decided I didn't have the talent or patience for it. This rate of learning is the result of decades of figuring how I can learn new skills most efficiently while having fun. Basically, this piece is me playing with doing fur, putting clouds in perspective heading toward the horizon, using placement of 3D objects for outlines, and figuring out grass/plants/flower type of foliage. This approach does not eliminate the need for disciplined practice, it redistributes the practice holistically so I can achieve global progress while focusing on specific skills when needed. I believe anyone can learn how to learn efficiently and enjoyably.
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I am self educated, thanks to an exhortation of my father who said that education never ends. I understood that he meant my own quest for understanding was a life long pursuit independent of formal education.
You are absolutely right. The purpose of government schools to train factory workers and employees, not to teach people to think. It is to shape and conform the population into herd mentality and to be consumers of the ivy league aristocracy. It works very well and has greatly damaged the church of Jesus Christ as millions of believers simply accept what they are told about God, Jesus and the Bible even to the point where science and secular morality are made equal to God and his righteousness in the minds of dumbed down believers.
The Lord showed me another side of the Proverb
Pro_22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
It is commonly understood as a directive to train children in the knowledge of God so they won't depart from God in their old age. Yet look at how many Christian children leave Christ when they enter college. What I realized is that this verse is saying what happens in childhood impacts us as adults. In my first musing on the topic, I wondered why I loved my father more than my mother. I realized it was because he was demonstrably affectionate with me and spent time with me and took an interest in my life, whereas my mother took care of me but never showed me affection or much interest in my life. She loved me, of course, but the experience of my father's affection towards me in my childhood remains with me to this day.
It is the experience that matters, not just the teaching of Christ and Bible verse memorization. As a third grader I was told by my class teacher that I had a beautiful voice and encouraged me to join the school choir. I was so nervous I never sang out loud, but only mouthed the words. At the end of the season, the choir director wanted to hear us all sing solos. I choked and squeaked out the song. He got angry and said that I could not sing and kicked me out of the choir. I was so heart broken I cried all the way home. To this day, I am 63, I still choke when I try to sing solo.
Christians should be entrepreneurs and leaders of the world. Instead, government schools have broken our spirits and destroyed the folk aspect of our being and has made us consumers only of their corporate creations.
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