Opus 2015-90: Gestalt Intelligence

It isn’t that kids are getting dumber, they are just academically lazy.

It is the big picture they are not getting, possibly because there are key gaps.  Part of education used to involve the monotony of memorizing basic facts and formulas.  It was assumed that you needed a foundation of details and skills in order to finish building the edifice of education.  Without the foundation the soaring heights crumble and crash.

For instance, you cannot multiply if you cannot add.  You cannot divide if you cannot subtract.  The calculator is not a guaranteed solution.  If you have not done either often enough to know the “feel” of the answer, a calculator will not be your savior.  For instance, say you are trying to figure out if you can afford a car loan.  You need to figure some percentages and use your calculator to get an answer.  If you don’t have a rough idea of where the numbers should be and divide by the wrong number you might think you have enough money when you really don’t. 

Or take a purchase I made the other day.  There were two sizes.  The smaller one, which I bought was labeled $20.00.  The larger one was more.  When I went to pay the girl told me $26.00.  My first reaction was, “That is a lot of sales tax.”  If I did not have a feel for the proper amount I might have paid and been ripped off.  She had charged me for the larger unit.  Since I had a feel for percentages, I was able to straighten her out. 

That kind of “feel” only comes from experience.  Instead of getting the experience the students work in groups and the one who had parental instruction tells the rest of the group the answer.  They never learn to figure it out for themselves.

There is a big picture that the young don’t get.  Of course many of the older generation didn’t get it either.

Learning to think is work.  You can’t do it playing games.

homo unius libri