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anthonyarroyo | 13 years ago
Sorry to nitpick, but how can life not evolve around General Knowledge which, ostensibly, includes all knowledge. Agree with the sentiment, disagree with the argument.
"The greatest disservice to a cause is to defend it with poor arguments." -- Some Famous Guy Dead Guy Who Couldn't Program
philliphaydon|13 years ago
Take English for example: In school we used to analyze poems from World War 1 / 2, and we had to explain why the poet used this word, that sentence, this style, etc.
The truth is, there's no English Answer. The person wrote what he felt, what he smelt, saw, heard, etc. He felt that those words and sentences best described the what he wanted to say.
Yet we butcher these poems on speculation and assumptions. We don't learn anything from this in my opinion. The entire process of analyzing books/poems/movies in English class is silly.
With math we are forced to learn how to measure the volume of a triangle... Sure there may be some time in life where you might put this to use, but MOST people would never need to know this type of math, we need to instill general maths but we need to de-emphasize math and allow kids to focus on things they are interested in and allow them to be creative and learn to their full potential, if that means they want to go learn advanced math! By all means let them!
EliRivers|13 years ago
I have conversations with people (adults) who clearly never had to do these things (or any other similar study of the written word). It's like having a conversation with a child; they miss puns, subtext, irony, sarcasm, struggle to consider more than one conflicting opinion at a time, struggle to interpret beyond the purely literal and struggle to communicate their own thoughts to others. An inability to communicate beyond such a low level is crippling.
lutusp|13 years ago
The answer is obvious -- most of those who excel, who create breakthroughs, do it by specializing. This is not argue against general knowledge, only to say that specialization is an element of nearly every success story and scientific breakthrough.
There's even a new psychological theory about specializing, that celebrates focusing on a few things, or one -- it's called "Grit":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grit_(personality_trait)
"Grit in psychology is a positive, non-cognitive trait, based on an individual’s passion for a particular long-term goal or endstate coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective."
An example would be Albert Einstein working alone for years on his relativity theory, to the exclusion of any other activities.
But, just to prove how consistent psychologists are, the exact same behavior can get you an Asperger's diagnosis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
"... an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests."
These two theories describe the exact same behavior -- intense focus and specialization, but come to opposite conclusions -- it's good. No, wait, it's bad.
Given that there are two opposing but equally plausible psychological theories about this kind of personal focus, guess which historical figure is now diagnosed with Asperger's? Albert Einstein. Along with Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson, and Bill Gates.
More here: http://arachnoid.com/building_science
EliRivers|13 years ago
I disagree. One of them is about long-term passion for a goal. One of them is about social inability.
It's quite possible to have both at the same time. It's quite possible to have just one. It's quite possible to have neither. They are not the same thing.