(no subject)
Sitting in the tutoring center.
Third floor. Windows open.
I'm listening to the sounds of the band camps.
Kids walking by the building laughing and smiling even though it's like 100 degrees.
That's a lie. It's definitely not 100. But I'm pretty sure when I was at band camp it was 100.
We also had to walk up hill both ways to get to the practice field.
Band camp was awesome.
Sneaking Terrance and Steev in to play Fusion Frenzy all night.
Inventing the triple stack desk entertainment center.
Coin spin breaking the salt n pepper shakers.
The eating noise.
Anyways.
I hate routines.
I hate the way that they are supposed to help you get things done.
I prefer just doing random things at random times.
I've been in this history class for the last few weeks.
I really appreciate the fact that mathematicians seem to be fairly articulate
gentlemen. The way they write is very calculated. No sentence begins without
clearly addressing its purpose within the first few words. I would really
like to learn to write that way. It's funny that in all of my years taking
English classes I never was taught how to write. I mostly just learned how
to break up a persuasive argument into three paragraphs. The structure of a
sentence was not nearly as important as the paragraph it resided in, an idea
that seems completely backwards. You should learn vocabulary first, along with
spelling. Next in the process should be learning to construct a meaningful
sentence. The last task to learn should be constructing paragraphs. I think
the world would be a more intelligent place to live in if everyone could convey
their ideas using words on a page. I'm not saying that people would have higher
IQ's but there would be less misunderstanding between people. When people understand
each other they are more likely to construct meaningful dialogue and ideas.
I am very far from being able to write my ideas effectively.
I think this is strange considering most of my mathematical training has focused
on the logical construction of truths. Logical construction does not mean
well understood construction, however, and therein lies my downfall.
We learned all about the Indian mathematician Ramanujan today. He spent all
of his time scribbling formulas without bothering to prove them. This is the
perfect example of what I think schools should try to teach students. Instead
of forcing kids to complete pre-formed lists of problems, there should be more
emphasis on the construction of original ideas and finding evidence to support
them. I like to think that this is the way my brain used to work. I wrote about
this subject once in my EDU 107 "Introduction to Education" class. I wrote about
my days after elementary school where I felt like I was getting dumber. Now I know
that I am not dumber than I was in elementary school. On the contrary, I have
learned many more facts in the last 10+ years and have committed a sizable amount
of them to memory. However, there has always been a feeling of a constant slipping
down a hill of intelligence in the back of my mind. If I had been taught integral
calculus or analytical geometry in 5th grade I would have been able to comprehend
it in the blink of an eye. That's not to say I could have solved problems from
a textbook, but I believe my mind would have been able to accept it more readily.
After years of conditioning, my brain has become a sort of maze of proof and
result. I can only accept something as truth after I have analyzed it from all
angles and convinced myself of it's correctness. I think this is a restriction
rather than an improvement on my ability to learn. It keeps me from quickly
accepting basic truths and moving on to more advanced applications. Every time
I am given a new problem I must return to the basis of the argument and convince
myself of every step along the way to the solution. I think that when I was younger
it was easier to open up the unconscious parts of my brain and let them worry
about the details. Currently I have to process every detail consciously in the
most "frontal" portion of my mind. Flash cards are a good idea for math students.
They allow problem solving to be a more reflex-based process. See an expression
and immediately push the mundane and tedious tasks to the unconscious to decipher.
Anyways, if there were a way to develop my brain to feel more like it did when
I was younger and more logically naive would help me enormously.
Meanwhile. Here I am.
I tried to convey some ideas up there ^ using more soundly constructed sentences.
I know I failed miserably but it's a start.
Third floor. Windows open.
I'm listening to the sounds of the band camps.
Kids walking by the building laughing and smiling even though it's like 100 degrees.
That's a lie. It's definitely not 100. But I'm pretty sure when I was at band camp it was 100.
We also had to walk up hill both ways to get to the practice field.
Band camp was awesome.
Sneaking Terrance and Steev in to play Fusion Frenzy all night.
Inventing the triple stack desk entertainment center.
Coin spin breaking the salt n pepper shakers.
The eating noise.
Anyways.
I hate routines.
I hate the way that they are supposed to help you get things done.
I prefer just doing random things at random times.
I've been in this history class for the last few weeks.
I really appreciate the fact that mathematicians seem to be fairly articulate
gentlemen. The way they write is very calculated. No sentence begins without
clearly addressing its purpose within the first few words. I would really
like to learn to write that way. It's funny that in all of my years taking
English classes I never was taught how to write. I mostly just learned how
to break up a persuasive argument into three paragraphs. The structure of a
sentence was not nearly as important as the paragraph it resided in, an idea
that seems completely backwards. You should learn vocabulary first, along with
spelling. Next in the process should be learning to construct a meaningful
sentence. The last task to learn should be constructing paragraphs. I think
the world would be a more intelligent place to live in if everyone could convey
their ideas using words on a page. I'm not saying that people would have higher
IQ's but there would be less misunderstanding between people. When people understand
each other they are more likely to construct meaningful dialogue and ideas.
I am very far from being able to write my ideas effectively.
I think this is strange considering most of my mathematical training has focused
on the logical construction of truths. Logical construction does not mean
well understood construction, however, and therein lies my downfall.
We learned all about the Indian mathematician Ramanujan today. He spent all
of his time scribbling formulas without bothering to prove them. This is the
perfect example of what I think schools should try to teach students. Instead
of forcing kids to complete pre-formed lists of problems, there should be more
emphasis on the construction of original ideas and finding evidence to support
them. I like to think that this is the way my brain used to work. I wrote about
this subject once in my EDU 107 "Introduction to Education" class. I wrote about
my days after elementary school where I felt like I was getting dumber. Now I know
that I am not dumber than I was in elementary school. On the contrary, I have
learned many more facts in the last 10+ years and have committed a sizable amount
of them to memory. However, there has always been a feeling of a constant slipping
down a hill of intelligence in the back of my mind. If I had been taught integral
calculus or analytical geometry in 5th grade I would have been able to comprehend
it in the blink of an eye. That's not to say I could have solved problems from
a textbook, but I believe my mind would have been able to accept it more readily.
After years of conditioning, my brain has become a sort of maze of proof and
result. I can only accept something as truth after I have analyzed it from all
angles and convinced myself of it's correctness. I think this is a restriction
rather than an improvement on my ability to learn. It keeps me from quickly
accepting basic truths and moving on to more advanced applications. Every time
I am given a new problem I must return to the basis of the argument and convince
myself of every step along the way to the solution. I think that when I was younger
it was easier to open up the unconscious parts of my brain and let them worry
about the details. Currently I have to process every detail consciously in the
most "frontal" portion of my mind. Flash cards are a good idea for math students.
They allow problem solving to be a more reflex-based process. See an expression
and immediately push the mundane and tedious tasks to the unconscious to decipher.
Anyways, if there were a way to develop my brain to feel more like it did when
I was younger and more logically naive would help me enormously.
Meanwhile. Here I am.
I tried to convey some ideas up there ^ using more soundly constructed sentences.
I know I failed miserably but it's a start.