Originally posted by nefardec
Paranoid much? Since Krishnamurti's collected works have shaped a lot of my understanding, I thought it would be useful to share his actual words in terms of how I have come to use them as a result, and maybe interesting to others in the thread given that the book, along with most of his work, is directly related to the content of this thread. Is that some how a crime in the court of SYSTEM-J?
I just find it amusing you'd use a different definition of "intelligence" to most other people to mean a different definition of "understanding" to the one other people are using in this thread, all to drag this thread towards a surprisingly definitive answer to the OP's question that you've read in a book. A book that has apparently shaped your own understanding. Just seemed massively contradictory, especially as you more than almost any other TA seem to derive most of your perspective and understanding from what you've read.
Your anti-education perspective seems to stem from your dissatisfaction with your own education, which you've complained about in great detail before. My education involved reading many books which helped me realise things about the world and my place in it, which is exactly what you have done on your own time and your own library card.
quote:
yeah? that's hilarious, because you quoted this when you tried to 'school' me with dictionary.com
I'm not actually trying to school you, and if my bluntness came across in that way, I'm sorry. I just saw all the crossed wires from your obscure usage of the words, as well as your matter-of-fact "by definition", "understanding means" which was leading to confusion. My point was "Understanding means a great many things and your definition is right at the bottom of the list", but I'd just typed a lot responding to Domesticated so I kept that part quick.
Kismet7
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Originally posted by Sushipunk
The internet CT community?
Yeah, I'm guessing so :p
I meant all of society. Society is grossly undersexed, sexually supressed, and repressed.
nefardec
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Your anti-education perspective seems to stem from your dissatisfaction with your own education, which you've complained about in great detail before. My education involved reading many books which helped me realise things about the world and my place in it, which is exactly what you have done on your own time and your own library card.
for the last time i am not anti-education. i am anti-complacency and anti-authority. (the complacency with knowledge and skillsets derived from most educational systems) i am, however, skeptical and dissatisfied with standardized education, which i think is a healthy and practical skepticism.
my education helped me realize things about the world too. there were certain things i didn't like about my educational experience, but there were many valuable experiences as well.
my general dissatisfaction with education goes back much farther than college - really it was my parents who raised me to question authority. i was the kid who got the report cards that said 'divergent thinker' 'does not respect authority', 'distracts other students'. They used to put me in a corner and let me read my own books and start my own projects because the teachers didn't know what to do with me, and that was probably really formative.
edit: also, i think you're mixing up my dissatisfaction with education with my dissatisfaction with the profession I chose.
If I could go back to college and do it again I'd design my own major. At that point in my life I was still star-struck by the ivy league institution.
Silky Johnson
Hm, my report cards always said the same thing. Except my teachers weren't dumb enough to leave me to my own devices. I was put into enrichment studies, and every year I was one of a handful of students who participated in special art projects, writing workshops, trips to meet and greet authors, etc. , by grade 8 I wad so far ahead of everyone that when everyone else was doing their English lessons, I was down teaching art lessons that I prepared myself to the primary kids.
I guess what I'm saying is: I'd probaly have a low opinion of education, too, if my teachers didn't know what they were doing.
nefardec
quote:
Originally posted by jennypie
Hm, my report cards always said the same thing. Except my teachers weren't dumb enough to leave me to my own devices. I was put into enrichment studies, and every year I was one of a handful of students who participated in special art projects, writing workshops, trips to meet and greet authors, etc. , by grade 8 I wad so far ahead of everyone that when everyone else was doing their English lessons, I was down teaching art lessons that I prepared myself to the primary kids.
I guess what I'm saying is: I'd probaly have a low opinion of education if my teachers didn't know what they were doing either.
yeah, i did all the special 'gifted' programs and all that bs too.
also, my mom was a teacher.
i'm grateful that they left me to my own devices, because it prepared me for a life of independence, resourcefulness, and creativity. It's probably the best thing they could have done. how is what they did dumb, when they are paid by taxpayers to teach the majority of the children from a standardized lesson plan and this one kid keeps throwing a wrench in your discussions? Maybe it wasn't the BEST teaching, but hey I went to public school, so what do you expect? Certainly I had many teachers who did go out of their way to challenge me individually, mostly later in high school, though.
Why is it that you guys are so afraid to say a bad word about educational systems? It seems like you recoil when you hear even the suggestion that there might be a valid alternative for those who can manage it.
Anyway this is getting too autobiographical.
Silky Johnson
I wasn't aware that it was the education system's job to teach us how to be independent, resourceful, and creative. Personally, I learned that from my parents, and they weren't teachers.
GoSpeedGo!
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Originally posted by wing
Get the out :wtf:
Our world is built up of ideas extracted from daydreaming and dreams. You can't be serious so I'm skipping this. If you are, you need to let your mind wander about. What the :wtf:.
Daydreaming alone isn't going to get you anywhere. Obviously, you're encouraged to have ideas, but at the end of the day you have to get up and do something so you could make it real. The less time you spend thinking about how awesome it's going to be when it's done the better, because otherwise you're robbing yourself of time you could spend actually working on it.
I'm not saying that thinking about past and future is bad per se, but too often it is unconstructive and serves as pure escapism, allowing people to become oblivious to the only thing that is actually real: the present moment. We forget that we live right here, right now.
nefardec
quote:
Originally posted by jennypie
I wasn't aware that it was the education system's job to teach us how to be independent, resourceful, and creative. Personally, I learned that from my parents, and they weren't teachers.
yes, that's exactly my point.
the education system prepares you to be a vegetable, unless you have parents like yours, or mine.
Silky Johnson
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Originally posted by nefardec
the education system prepares you to be a vegetable, unless you have parents like yours, or mine.
I don't agree with that though. Of course the system is standardized, because all minds are not created equal. So unfortunately that means we have to cater to the greatest number of people, which just so happen to be average. I don't think it's the system's fault that not everyone develops a love of learning and the ability to question gaps in their knowledge. It's a nice idealistic thought that all teachers would teach all people how to really think, but again, not all people are capable of that for one reason or another. Besides, if that were reality, the world be full of pretentious, arrogant cunts - and it takes all kinds, doesn't it?
If you don't like it, send your kids to Montessori or private school.
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by nefardec
Why is it that you guys are so afraid to say a bad word about educational systems? It seems like you recoil when you hear even the suggestion that there might be a valid alternative for those who can manage it.
I have endless bad words to say about the education system. You've obviously not happened across one of my polemics against higher level education in the UK. I just find it contradictory to say things like:
" what i learned came between the classes, in the relationships i had with other people"
"The only valuable part of my educational experience was the fact that I was surrounded by interesting people who I could relate to on a deeper level."
"academic education IS valuable, but only because it is another type of life experience."
And then talk extensively about understanding you've recieved from reading a book. It just seems to rely on the massive and obviously untrue assumption that education is just reading logocentric facts from books and that none of these books will ever provide the kind of understanding Krishnamurti has given you.
Perhaps I was lucky, but at university I had a professor who almost became a mentor to me, and he always encouraged us to question these things. I remember him deconstructing the ideology behind why we were sat in his lecture and laying out the blunt Marxist reasoning for university students to exist.
And as for questioning authority, my parents never taught me to do it but I did it anyway. I was suspended from school or formally warned of suspension on two occasions, I refused to do coursework for certain classes as I didn't want to take them, I wrote parodic examination answers (I once composed a letter to the examiner in a chemistry exam rather than answering the question, so I'd get marks for "quality of written communication"), I walked out of classes I thought were pointless, I wrote letters to national newspapers complaining about asinine aspects of the education system (which were published). Even as an eight year old I demanded a good reason from my mother before I obeyed her instructions.
So trust me, I have absolutely no problem criticising the education system and no problem with questioning authority. I just think your reasoning in this thread is either contradictory or based around a simplistic strawman idea of what education has to involve.
nefardec
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I have endless bad words to say about the education system. You've obviously not happened across one of my polemics against higher level education in the UK. I just find it contradictory to say things like:
" what i learned came between the classes, in the relationships i had with other people"
"The only valuable part of my educational experience was the fact that I was surrounded by interesting people who I could relate to on a deeper level."
"academic education IS valuable, but only because it is another type of life experience."
And then talk extensively about understanding you've recieved from reading a book. It just seems to rely on the massive and obviously untrue assumption that education is just reading logocentric facts from books and that none of these books will ever provide the kind of understanding Krishnamurti has given you.
Well that would be contradictory, if that were the only book or author I read or found to be in the least bit compelling. Also I discovered his works through my own unfolding interest in the subject, and not because I had to jump through hoops to make the grade.
I think you're starting to get ridiculous when you make the argument that anything you read is a form of book knowledge, so therefore one can't say book knowledge is not valuable if he has ever read (or derived understanding from) a book.
Obviously I am ONLY talking about an entirely different standardized educational environment, in which material is prescribed to you and shoved down your throat so that you can win free pizzas for good grades.
Kismet7
Education is social conditioning. It allows individuals to operate and function in society. Without education, or some form schooling structure and the social conditioning that comes with it, a person would be more useless and lost in this modern society. Unless you get lucky and get hold of an opportunity based on physical attributes like looks or ability. But even that opportunity has to be maintained, and that social conditioning through education or books becomes valuable.
Krishnamurti's philosophy is just one way of functioning in society, its not the only way. Books can hold the collective knowledge of many, and they can be used as a short cut towards ones self realization or self knowledge or 'intelligence' in this topic. So it makes no sense to me to be against education or books in lieu finding all the answers on your own. Most humans do not have the intellect or mental capacity to do this. And if they do reach this self realization on their own, most of it will be based on illusions and perceptions.
Of course this education system is not made to create the best humans possible or the happiest humans possible, or the most enlightened humans possible, it is system to create people who are productive and who are conditioned in a way to mesh well with the rest of a controlled money driven society.
