After thinking about it a great deal, I feel I've figure out where I stand. I feel like there are two kinds of students. There is the student who, while reading, encounters an unfamiliar word, and immediately asks their teacher 'what does this word mean?' There is also the student who, upon encountering this same unfamiliar word, will open up a dictionary and look it up themselves.
Either way, the student is going to get an answer, but who will remember that answer better? I think that my suppositions are clear :D.
P.S. I am trying out a new reductionist style of blog posting in response to criticism of my general verbosity. How is it working?
What about the third type of person who sees a word they do not know and doesn't care or bother to find out its meaning?
ReplyDeleteP.S. The shorter posts are nicer to read and understand, but there was nothing wrong with your longer posts. They were just made my eyes a little sore after reading them.
Just love reading your prose, the interplay of words, the vocabulary choice and the cadence of sentences. Each sentence is a delicate morsel of intellectual gastronomy.
ReplyDeleteDon't starve those of us so hungry for the feast you have to offer!
To anonymous: The person who comes upon something (s)he does not understand and neither cares nor bothers to find out its meaning is probably someone who will move in completely different circles from those of us who do care. No doubt they will find comfort in the indifferent intellectually dead world of their colleagues in that circle, railing about things they do not understand or that they misunderstand, intellectual posers looking very foolish. No doubt those who do care will find a very different kind of life in the circle in which they move. The circles will not interesect. And everyone will be happy.
ReplyDeleteThe ones who cared enough to make an effort to learn/discover will understand their happiness on multiple, rich, internal levels. The ones who did not care enough or could not be bothered will be too borné to know how limited they in fact are.
Thank you Barry for such dizzying praise!! It means a great deal to me, even if I overlooked telling you so in the midst of these last few hectic weeks.
ReplyDeleteAnd 'Anonymous,' as far as I'm concerned, the person who encounters something new and unfamiliar and is indifferent rather than curious...well, they're not properly alive. To me, life is curiosity, it is growth and exploration, it's the inevitable trajectory of human inquiry and endeavor. Indifference...well, it just seems like such a horrible waste.