Smart idiots
Excerpt from this article:
I often thought I was really stupid because I couldn’t understand why teachers taught things that I thought were obvious. I thought that other children were smarter because they saw complexities that I now know never existed. Instead of realizing that I had grasped the concepts quickly or knew them already, I thought I was missing some subtle point that confused others and I was too dense to see it.
I’ve only skimmed the article, it has been printed out for reading later … being a baby boomer (born 1949), i prefer to read on paper.
Your quote reminded me of the time I had a viva voce history exam before graduating from secondary school. My grade was much lower that it could have been because the questions were so simplistic: I was trying to reply to hidden depths and connections that just were not there!
From what I’ve read of the article, I have two points to make:
1) We now seem to be in a period of backlash – from the «deal with it» generation to the «finding myself» generation that I’m a part of to a CBT (which I always read as «cock and ball torture») return to «deal with it». The difference is that the GI generation, like the war generation here in Norway, knew what «it» was. All the different offshoots of behavioral therapy seem aimed at preventing people from seeing «it» in their own lives. (Doing some very subjective thinking aloud here)
2) Thinking aloud some more: GI and CBT approaches, like some types of religion, are based on obedience: «Do what you’re told, and all will be well.» It is preached by people who have submitted to this obedience, partly as a fee for getting into a position of power so that they they can demand obedience from others.
«Your quote reminded me of the time I had a viva voce history exam before graduating from secondary school. My grade was much lower that it could have been because the questions were so simplistic: I was trying to reply to hidden depths and connections that just were not there! »
Just so! :)