There has been an uptick in discussion in the non-west-coast rationalist sphere about the benefits of the old aristocratic tutorial system of education that produced a relatively large share of history's genius compared to Prussian model oversocialization mills. Obviously, old aristocracy may have some degree of genetic advantage in acheivement and numerous connections, but it is interesting to examine the possible impact of this kind of one-on-one education model that has nearly gone extinct until recently, even among the rich.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/co...c-tutoring
https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/03/20...-tutoring/
(03-09-2023, 08:49 PM)carcinoEugenicist Wrote: There has been an uptick in discussion in the non-west-coast rationalist sphere about the benefits of the old aristocratic tutorial system of education that produced a relatively large share of history's genius compared to Prussian model oversocialization mills. Obviously, old aristocracy may have some degree of genetic advantage in acheivement and numerous connections, but it is interesting to examine the possible impact of this kind of one-on-one education model that has nearly gone extinct until recently, even among the rich.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/co...c-tutoring
https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/03/20...-tutoring/
Hadn't seen that second one before, but posted the whole thing astralcodex is contributing to elsewhere.
Quote:This ties neatly into the social/moral element we mention above. Children may be moved by a passionate tutor, or a beloved uncle, or a cousin, or a medical student who lives in the spare room. But they will always be influenced by older siblings, and the more older siblings there are, the more gates to adult influence will be opened. Maybe if we want more geniuses, people need to start having larger families.
The family point seems unnecessary. He kind of alludes to what's really needed above with the moronic speedrunning comment.
Quote:If this is right, then we don’t need to worry about tutoring being aristocratic. You shouldn’t need tutors or even miraculous Hungarian math teachers. Other things that are also inspiring / socially encouraging would work just as well — see for example the amazing progress of the speedrunning community, a bunch of teenage nerds bootstrapping a scene by inspiring each another to insane degrees of precision.
Right track, bad example for reasons that should be obvious to us.
The right track is that children need natural contact with real human activity. Modern life is pretty much free-range THX1138. Live in a sterile pod, get shuttled around to other pods to do artificial and isolated single things, transit to other pods for other activities. The only place youth can actually make free contact with others following a halfway natural line of curiosity and connections is the internet. Which is obviously not great because most of you is static in a chair while this is going on. You can only put so much of yourself online, but this became more appealing than going outside because despite the physical presence you can put even less of yourself into ZOGworld.
Interestingly optimistic piece. He seems to think the system is rather salvageable, but won't allude to the obvious enormous changes that would have to happen to facilitate these changes he suggests and poses like they're plausible nudges and inspired moves.
Quote:But another possibility is that mechanized schooling is net neutral, and the problem is that we’ve lost some active ingredient that makes tutoring effective.
Education no longer includes moral instruction. Back in the day, a proper education taught you more than “the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” — it taught you to take your character as seriously as your scholarship, to lead and to serve, and to understand your moral responsibilities. Tutoring worked because tutors inspired their pupils. Modern education is a lot of things, but “inspiring” ain’t one of them.
Quote:… there were many superb teachers at the Lutheran gymnasium. But the greatest was my mathematics teacher László Rátz. Rátz was known not only throughout our gymnasium but also by the church and government hierarchy and among many of the teachers in the country schools. I still keep a photograph of Rátz in my workroom because he had every quality of a miraculous teacher: He loved teaching. He knew the subject and how to kindle interest in it. He imparted the very deepest understanding. Many gymnasium teachers had great skill, but no one could evoke the beauty of the subject like Rátz.
Does the American Laszlo Ratz of the future have girls in his class? How about niggers? These issues are important SMTM. In my opinion the most important ones. Frankly if we didn't have these issues I think the rest would effortlessly fall into place again.
(03-09-2023, 01:26 AM)anthony Wrote: Okay that's enough of that. Here's more Holt, if anybody's curious. John Gatto was more committed to the idea of putting together proper lectures and talks on all of this, but I consider Holt the far more interesting character.
Quote:“Fortunately I did not start teaching until I was thirty. By then I had had three years of experience as a submarine officer, some in combat; I had worked six years in responsible positions in the world government movement, in the course of which I had given about six hundred public lectures; I had lived alone and made myself at home, on very little money, in a number of European cities; I had ridden a bicycle most of the way from Paris to Rome; and, in the course of my work for world government, I had become something like an extra uncle in about fifty families with young children. I had not lost all of my distrust in myself or fear of the world, but I had lost enough so that I could see the trials and failures of the classroom not as threats to my authority or sense of personal worth but only as interesting problems to think about and try to solve.”
Yes a very interesting character. Quote from How Children Fail.
Just finish Holts book How Children Fail. Here are some apposite quotes.
Quote:“There is one more reason, and the most important one, why we must reject the idea of school and classroom as places where, most of the time, children are doing what some adult tells them to do. The reason is that there is no way to coerce children without making them afraid, or more afraid. We must not try to fool ourselves into thinking that this is not so. The would-be progressives, who until recently had great influence over most American public school education, did not recognize this--and still do not. They thought, or at least talked and wrote as if they thought, that there were good ways and bad ways to coerce children (the bad ones mean, harsh, cruel, the good ones gentle, persuasive, subtle, kindly), and that if they avoided the bad and stuck to the good they would do no harm. This was one of their greatest mistakes, and the main reason why the revolution they hoped to accomplish never took hold.”
Quote:“There may be a connection here with producer-thinker strategies. [We used the word producer to describe the student who was only interested in getting right answers, and who made more or less uncritical use of rules and formulae to get them; we called thinker the student who tried to think about the meaning, the reality, of whatever it was he was working on.] A student who jumps at the right answer and misses often falls back into defeatism and despair because he doesn't know what else to do. The thinker is more willing to plug on.”
Quote:“What really makes school hard for thinkers is not just that teachers say so much that doesn't make sense, but that they say it in exactly the way they say things that are sensible, so that the child comes to feel--as he is intended to-that when he doesn't understand it is his fault.”
Quote:Children who are learning on their own, learning what interests them, don't get all upset every time they meet something unusual or strange. To young children, everything is strange. They may think and fantasize a great deal about what they do not understand, but they worry about it very little. It is only when other people, adults, start trying to control their learning and force their understanding that they begin to worry about not understanding, because they know that if they don't understand, sooner or later they are going to be in some kind of trouble with those adults.”
Quote:“Schools give every encouragement to producers, the kids whose idea is to get "right answers" by any and all means. In a system that runs on "right answers," they can hardly help it. And these schools are often very discouraging places for thinkers.”
Quote:“Does not something very close to this happen often in school? Children are subject peoples. School for them is a kind of jail. Do they not, to some extent, escape and frustrate the relentless, insatiable pressure of their elders by withdrawing the most intelligent and creative parts of their minds from the scene? Is this not at least a partial explanation of the extraordinary stupidity that otherwise bright children so often show in school? The stubborn and dogged "I don't get it" with which they meet the instructions and explanations of their teachers--may it not be a statement of resistance as well as one of panic and flight?”
Quote:“To a very great degree, school is a place where children learn to be stupid. A dismal thought, but hard to escape. Infants are not stupid. Children of one, two, or even three throw the whole of themselves into everything they do. They embrace life, and devour it; it is why they learn so fast and are such good company. Listlessness, boredom, and apathy--these all come later. Children come to school curious; within a few years most of that curiosity is dead, or at least silent.”
The extent of Holts thinking(at least in this book) is about teaching all students(even retards) and it seems his understanding of intelligence is incomplete. My take away from reading this was that smart children should be raised to be scholars getting extra attention and resources while the dumb-dumbs should be trained in completing tasks as technicians. Rise of the Meritocracy also goes through the same development.
School is totally useless for those non-intelligently gifted students and it’s a question why it’s applied to all. Paying the smarter student to stay in school while lower the age to leave school makes more sense but I want to go a step further. Do students actually have to start so young? Most knowledge can be taught to more gifted students at a faster rate at an older age meaning that schooling at a younger age(5-9/10) is completely useless. But this brings up the real use for school, a daycare. What is to happen to these children between 5-9/10? Some kind of boys scout type thing where the children make bounds as a troop and learn about nature and other things in the natural world. While after this stage they go to school to become scholars or artist and the less intelligent/artistically gifted will go into apprenticeships to become technicians.
(03-19-2023, 10:05 PM)Guest Wrote: The extent of Holts thinking(at least in this book) is about teaching all students(even retards) and it seems his understanding of intelligence is incomplete. My take away from reading this was that smart children should be raised to be scholars getting extra attention and resources while the dumb-dumbs should be trained in completing tasks as technicians. Rise of the Meritocracy also goes through the same development.
School is totally useless for those non-intelligently gifted students and it’s a question why it’s applied to all. Paying the smarter student to stay in school while lower the age to leave school makes more sense but I want to go a step further. Do students actually have to start so young? Most knowledge can be taught to more gifted students at a faster rate at an older age meaning that schooling at a younger age(5-9/10) is completely useless. But this brings up the real use for school, a daycare. What is to happen to these children between 5-9/10? Some kind of boys scout type thing where the children make bounds as a troop and learn about nature and other things in the natural world. While after this stage they go to school to become scholars or artist and the less intelligent/artistically gifted will go into apprenticeships to become technicians.
What makes you say his understanding of intelligence is "incomplete"? I can more or less agree with everything you've taken from the book so I can't see where you see an issue with Holt.
(03-19-2023, 10:41 PM)anthony Wrote: What makes you say his understanding of intelligence is "incomplete"? I can more or less agree with everything you've taken from the book so I can't see where you see an issue with Holt.
Not this specific quote but I’ll use it as an example.
Quote:“What puzzles me is, if IQ measures even roughly the rate at which we learn, why a child with an IQ of 50 should not in time get to be a reasonably normal and competent person. It is said that, in terms of what he knows and can figure out, the average adult is not much beyond the level of the average twelve-year-old. For all my skepticism about the measurement and testing of intelligence, I think this reflects some kind of truth. Then why should not the child with the IQ of 50 catch up with the crowd, more or less, by the time he is twenty-five? What happens to him along the way to ensure that he will never catch up?”
Through out the book you see him constantly describe problems related to low iq yet he never comes to the conclusion that the problem(in his examples, not why children fail in school) goes beyond “learning speed”.
There’s this part where this guy teaches a few high functioning downies(age 16) and they have a miracles breakthrough with these blocks(forgot their name) and I’m pretty sure Holt thought they could eventually learn calculus after that.
Holt talks about the interesting ways children game the system and figure out ways to produce answers without understanding the underlining nature of it. I think this is all that happened with the downies, that they were not taking steps towards a more concrete understanding of spacial interaction but rather on the base line learned how to complete a task. The idea that they could never completely understand is beyond what Holts willing to believe. Any proof he might see of Retards approaching a more complete understanding would merely be a self deception. Because he’s not willing to take this step I don’t think he can progress beyond it.
(03-19-2023, 11:19 PM)Guest Wrote: (03-19-2023, 10:41 PM)anthony Wrote: What makes you say his understanding of intelligence is "incomplete"? I can more or less agree with everything you've taken from the book so I can't see where you see an issue with Holt.
Not this specific quote but I’ll use it as an example.
Quote:“What puzzles me is, if IQ measures even roughly the rate at which we learn, why a child with an IQ of 50 should not in time get to be a reasonably normal and competent person. It is said that, in terms of what he knows and can figure out, the average adult is not much beyond the level of the average twelve-year-old. For all my skepticism about the measurement and testing of intelligence, I think this reflects some kind of truth. Then why should not the child with the IQ of 50 catch up with the crowd, more or less, by the time he is twenty-five? What happens to him along the way to ensure that he will never catch up?”
Through out the book you see him constantly describe problems related to low iq yet he never comes to the conclusion that the problem(in his examples, not why children fail in school) goes beyond “learning speed”.
There’s this part where this guy teaches a few high functioning downies(age 16) and they have a miracles breakthrough with these blocks(forgot their name) and I’m pretty sure Holt thought they could eventually learn calculus after that.
Holt talks about the interesting ways children game the system and figure out ways to produce answers without understanding the underlining nature of it. I think this is all that happened with the downies, that they were not taking steps towards a more concrete understanding of spacial interaction but rather on the base line learned how to complete a task. The idea that they could never completely understand is beyond what Holts willing to believe. Any proof he might see of Retards approaching a more complete understanding would merely be a self deception. Because he’s not willing to take this step I don’t think he can progress beyond it.
I opened up the book just to search all uses of the term "retard" and "retarded". First thought, it's nice how candid people could be back then. I don't think I've ever seen a man sympathise more truly with their plight since. And he called them "retarded".
As for the particular part you're talking about with Gattegno's example, questions are asked which suggest an abstract understanding is gained of halves and creating wholes, but that seems less important here.
Your issue with Holt is that the issue of unintelligence "goes beyond learning speed". This is a very complex issue, and what I'll give Holt is that "learning speed" is an answer. The system as it was didn't have one, the system as it is doesn't have one, and most importantly, you don't seem to be offering one.
Holt is suggesting that the retarded, like all of us, do have a capacity to learn. This is obviously true. Where do we go from here? Holt did not offer a factory-process solution. That kind of thinking is how he described the fundamental problem of schooling. Holt wanted to shake our perception and challenge fixed thoughts. The idea that comes across running through all of his thoughts on the retarded is linked to his more general thoughts on children. What if certain things we take for granted as in the nature of people are a result of how we treat them?
Even if the retarded will never be able to learn calculus (I'm inclined to think so), what can you definitively say about their condition? Beyond that obvious fact?
sex determines the objective. i have to say, i'm not so concerned with homeschooling young girls, because my objective above all else with them would be to make them likable and socially affluent, and as well to provide them with strong male role models at home. if a woman's intellect is marred by her emotional sensibilities and need for conformity, then why would I dedicate additional teaching resources to turn her into a "dissident" when I can put her in a public space and be done with it. I get the sense much of the egalitarian approach to male- female home schooling is just men being longhoused
boys, though, yes: you must do whatever it takes to keep them out of the school system. it is sickening to imagine young napoleons getting brow-beaten by cellulite frumpsters with pride flags and a george floyd mural adorning the classroom walls. there's some good ideas already itt so i won't say more on that but if you do go the homeschool route you boys are going to need special attention from dad - leaving them with mom all dah while you go work the coal mines ain't gonna cut it
sorry about the shit post but i'm on a tablet with a cracked screen
(05-30-2023, 07:20 PM)Guest Wrote: sex determines the objective. i have to say, i'm not so concerned with homeschooling young girls, because my objective above all else with them would be to make them likable and socially affluent, and as well to provide them with strong male role models at home. if a woman's intellect is marred by her emotional sensibilities and need for conformity, then why would I dedicate additional teaching resources to turn her into a "dissident" when I can put her in a public space and be done with it. I get the sense much of the egalitarian approach to male- female home schooling is just men being longhoused
boys, though, yes: you must do whatever it takes to keep them out of the school system. it is sickening to imagine young napoleons getting brow-beaten by cellulite frumpsters with pride flags and a george floyd mural adorning the classroom walls. there's some good ideas already itt so i won't say more on that but if you do go the homeschool route you boys are going to need special attention from dad - leaving them with mom all dah while you go work the coal mines ain't gonna cut it
sorry about the shit post but i'm on a tablet with a cracked screen I was ackshyually homeschooled. The value of it depends entirely on the child and the opportunities available where you live, but I would be more hesitant to homeschool a son than a daughter. The two downsides to homeschooling are the additional time/resources required by the parents and socialization. The former is a simple financial question, and I've known large, low-income families who make it work, so I would say it's not too difficult to overcome if you're willing to make sacrifices. The latter is trickier. It's easy to disregard when our culture and schools are dogshit, but if you can't provide adequate compensation for the social contact provided by public school, homeschooling can easily come back to bite your kid once they inevitably leave home. This is why I say homeschooling is a safer bet with daughters than with sons; men have less innate social value and worse social skills. These develop with interest. The earlier they're exposed to female depravity and how status hierarchies operate the better. You can only shelter them for so long, and if you fuck up they'll enter an uncaring world without any of the experience necessary to navigate it.
I also disagree with your model of adolescent psychology. Whatever the school forces down their throats (past a certain age, ~12) will be inherently uncool and rebelled against. If your kid isn't retarded and you're not overbearing they should realize you're their friend and the blue haired freak they have to put up with all day is their enemy pretty early. Young Napoleon is much more of a nuisance to Nurse Ratchet than vice versa.
Finally, I want to stress that it's very circumstantial. There's massive variation between public schools and children. If you're in a bad school district and/or your kid has naturally strong people skills, you don't have much to lose through homeschooling. In general I would say homeschooling is most valuable during middle school, and loses value the further you go in either direction. It can be a great success or a disaster depending on the particulars.
i think that the question of "socialization" for boys is overblown. girls need it because that's all they have, but in my mind boys need above all else competency, curiosity, and a strong constitution. they can have their friends and their sports and they can tease their sisters' friends when they come over, but i'm not convinced that what boys need in this day and age is what is really an overabundance of social contact
will maybe comment on the matter of resource allocation later, since that's a tougher question to address. idk though
(05-31-2023, 06:46 AM)Guest Wrote: i think that the question of "socialization" for boys is overblown. girls need it because that's all they have, but in my mind boys need above all else competency, curiosity, and a strong constitution. they can have their friends and their sports and they can tease their sisters' friends when they come over, but i'm not convinced that what boys need in this day and age is what is really an overabundance of social contact
will maybe comment on the matter of resource allocation later, since that's a tougher question to address. idk though It's not the social contact itself that's valuable, but if your son misses certain social milestones you run the risk of creating an incel (in the worst cases a homo) when this could have been easily avoided. The ability to win friends and influence people is a core part of competency at most jobs; too much estrangement from the normiesphere leaves one feeling like they're living in a foreign country, a common complaint among homeschooled adults. Again, this very much depends on the child and what they want from life and depending on where you live can be easily overcome. I observed a number of homeschoolers in uni. Some were very successful and didn't have these problems, but others repeatedly embarrassed themselves because they only knew how to function in very specific social environments that differ from the norm quite a bit. In an ideal world this wouldn't be a problem and feminine social posturing wouldn't a concern. Unfortunately most people are too petty for this, and their favor will determine what opportunities your child receives at school, at work, and at home.
(05-31-2023, 08:48 PM)Guest Wrote: (05-31-2023, 06:46 AM)Guest Wrote: i think that the question of "socialization" for boys is overblown. girls need it because that's all they have, but in my mind boys need above all else competency, curiosity, and a strong constitution. they can have their friends and their sports and they can tease their sisters' friends when they come over, but i'm not convinced that what boys need in this day and age is what is really an overabundance of social contact
will maybe comment on the matter of resource allocation later, since that's a tougher question to address. idk though It's not the social contact itself that's valuable, but if your son misses certain social milestones you run the risk of creating an incel (in the worst cases a homo) when this could have been easily avoided. The ability to win friends and influence people is a core part of competency at most jobs; too much estrangement from the normiesphere leaves one feeling like they're living in a foreign country, a common complaint among homeschooled adults. Again, this very much depends on the child and what they want from life and depending on where you live can be easily overcome. I observed a number of homeschoolers in uni. Some were very successful and didn't have these problems, but others repeatedly embarrassed themselves because they only knew how to function in very specific social environments that differ from the norm quite a bit. In an ideal world this wouldn't be a problem and feminine social posturing wouldn't a concern. Unfortunately most people are too petty for this, and their favor will determine what opportunities your child receives at school, at work, and at home.
The overwhelming majority of incels went to schools. It's possible to be estranged from inside.
(05-31-2023, 11:38 PM)anthony Wrote: (05-31-2023, 08:48 PM)Guest Wrote: (05-31-2023, 06:46 AM)Guest Wrote: i think that the question of "socialization" for boys is overblown. girls need it because that's all they have, but in my mind boys need above all else competency, curiosity, and a strong constitution. they can have their friends and their sports and they can tease their sisters' friends when they come over, but i'm not convinced that what boys need in this day and age is what is really an overabundance of social contact
will maybe comment on the matter of resource allocation later, since that's a tougher question to address. idk though It's not the social contact itself that's valuable, but if your son misses certain social milestones you run the risk of creating an incel (in the worst cases a homo) when this could have been easily avoided. The ability to win friends and influence people is a core part of competency at most jobs; too much estrangement from the normiesphere leaves one feeling like they're living in a foreign country, a common complaint among homeschooled adults. Again, this very much depends on the child and what they want from life and depending on where you live can be easily overcome. I observed a number of homeschoolers in uni. Some were very successful and didn't have these problems, but others repeatedly embarrassed themselves because they only knew how to function in very specific social environments that differ from the norm quite a bit. In an ideal world this wouldn't be a problem and feminine social posturing wouldn't a concern. Unfortunately most people are too petty for this, and their favor will determine what opportunities your child receives at school, at work, and at home.
The overwhelming majority of incels went to schools. It's possible to be estranged from inside. This is true, and imo raises a larger discussion about parenting that extends beyond this thread, but I knew multiple homeschoolers whose issues appeared to be directly caused by being homeschooled. I also know some who were able to find a quality wife early specifically because they were homeschooled. The biggest aid to homeschooling is a sufficiently large church that isn't insane.
06-01-2023, 09:24 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-01-2023, 09:25 PM by fox.)
(05-31-2023, 08:48 PM)Guest Wrote: (05-31-2023, 06:46 AM)Guest Wrote: i think that the question of "socialization" for boys is overblown. girls need it because that's all they have, but in my mind boys need above all else competency, curiosity, and a strong constitution. they can have their friends and their sports and they can tease their sisters' friends when they come over, but i'm not convinced that what boys need in this day and age is what is really an overabundance of social contact
will maybe comment on the matter of resource allocation later, since that's a tougher question to address. idk though It's not the social contact itself that's valuable, but if your son misses certain social milestones you run the risk of creating an incel (in the worst cases a homo) when this could have been easily avoided. The ability to win friends and influence people is a core part of competency at most jobs; too much estrangement from the normiesphere leaves one feeling like they're living in a foreign country, a common complaint among homeschooled adults. Again, this very much depends on the child and what they want from life and depending on where you live can be easily overcome. I observed a number of homeschoolers in uni. Some were very successful and didn't have these problems, but others repeatedly embarrassed themselves because they only knew how to function in very specific social environments that differ from the norm quite a bit. In an ideal world this wouldn't be a problem and feminine social posturing wouldn't a concern. Unfortunately most people are too petty for this, and their favor will determine what opportunities your child receives at school, at work, and at home.
Estrangement from the normiesphere is something that comes naturally to certain people, it can't be avoided simply by going to school and partaking in normie social activities. Also, homos are not created from lack of normie socialization, homos are some of the most social and outgoing people out there. If you mean homocels that's an entirely different phenomenon altogether and not a case of genuine homosexuality.
i get it - it's a hard balance to strike between creating fully normie-assimilated sons or keyed-in sons who resent you for isolating them from modern spiritual sickness. it's just an unfortunate situation of what is normal being totally repugnant and degenerative, and what is principled and reverent of natural order being cause for ostracization by THE MANY
i just wonder at what point you decide that the benefits of socialization do not outweigh sticking to your guns with regards to parenting, at the risk of foregoing some of those formative milestones. false dichotomy i know but generally it is the truth
this is the proverbial bridge-jumping moment: do you sacrifice yourself and your children to lies and degeneracy for the purposes of conformity, or do you maintain your principles at the risk of being "weird." homeschooling can be, if nothing else, a true test of the dissident spirit
(03-20-2023, 04:57 AM)anthony Wrote: (03-19-2023, 11:19 PM)Guest Wrote: (03-19-2023, 10:41 PM)anthony Wrote: What makes you say his understanding of intelligence is "incomplete"? I can more or less agree with everything you've taken from the book so I can't see where you see an issue with Holt.
Not this specific quote but I’ll use it as an example.
Quote:“What puzzles me is, if IQ measures even roughly the rate at which we learn, why a child with an IQ of 50 should not in time get to be a reasonably normal and competent person. It is said that, in terms of what he knows and can figure out, the average adult is not much beyond the level of the average twelve-year-old. For all my skepticism about the measurement and testing of intelligence, I think this reflects some kind of truth. Then why should not the child with the IQ of 50 catch up with the crowd, more or less, by the time he is twenty-five? What happens to him along the way to ensure that he will never catch up?”
Through out the book you see him constantly describe problems related to low iq yet he never comes to the conclusion that the problem(in his examples, not why children fail in school) goes beyond “learning speed”.
There’s this part where this guy teaches a few high functioning downies(age 16) and they have a miracles breakthrough with these blocks(forgot their name) and I’m pretty sure Holt thought they could eventually learn calculus after that.
Holt talks about the interesting ways children game the system and figure out ways to produce answers without understanding the underlining nature of it. I think this is all that happened with the downies, that they were not taking steps towards a more concrete understanding of spacial interaction but rather on the base line learned how to complete a task. The idea that they could never completely understand is beyond what Holts willing to believe. Any proof he might see of Retards approaching a more complete understanding would merely be a self deception. Because he’s not willing to take this step I don’t think he can progress beyond it.
I opened up the book just to search all uses of the term "retard" and "retarded". First thought, it's nice how candid people could be back then. I don't think I've ever seen a man sympathise more truly with their plight since. And he called them "retarded".
As for the particular part you're talking about with Gattegno's example, questions are asked which suggest an abstract understanding is gained of halves and creating wholes, but that seems less important here.
Your issue with Holt is that the issue of unintelligence "goes beyond learning speed". This is a very complex issue, and what I'll give Holt is that "learning speed" is an answer. The system as it was didn't have one, the system as it is doesn't have one, and most importantly, you don't seem to be offering one.
Holt is suggesting that the retarded, like all of us, do have a capacity to learn. This is obviously true. Where do we go from here? Holt did not offer a factory-process solution. That kind of thinking is how he described the fundamental problem of schooling. Holt wanted to shake our perception and challenge fixed thoughts. The idea that comes across running through all of his thoughts on the retarded is linked to his more general thoughts on children. What if certain things we take for granted as in the nature of people are a result of how we treat them?
Even if the retarded will never be able to learn calculus (I'm inclined to think so), what can you definitively say about their condition? Beyond that obvious fact?
@ anthony
Intelligence and Learning.
I guess you could say that the retards did learn something in the same way an octopus can learn to open a jar, I would not categorize that as human learning. Human intelligence is centered around the facility of the consciousness, or rather symbols. The connected between self-consciousness and sub-consciousness is the symbols that act as an intermediary.
You see most if not all learning is actually autodidactic. It’s the autonomic system. Yet we humans with out human intelligence are essentially completely unconnected to this. The complexity of the true form of our ideas in our heads is actually more of a living continuously malforming thing. It can only be accessed through dead still frames of symbols.
Most human understanding is through a connection of these symbols and their relationship. New ideas(which are signified through new symbols) are reconfigured into this system and can some times break of cause a rearranging of the old arrangement. Human intelligence is then completely dictated by concentration. Smarter people have better concentration. Concentration can only be known as desire. What we like is what we focus on allowing us to learn more about it. Stupider people thus inherently have less capacity for strength of emotion. They have less awareness because of lack of desire. This is truly what “dull” means. This can be easily observed in stupider people.
Those retards were not on the level of human learning but rather the basic autonomic-autodidactic learning of all life. I don’t think they have consciousness but are rather closer to animals.
Now human Intelligence is connected then by our aesthetic capacity. I believe this can be observed in the art of various civilizations from primitive tribes to Greek statues. We developed this aesthetic capacity for communication. We communicate and understand through the aesthetic.
Quote:“Kant also goes so far as to claim that the activity of imagination is a necessary part of what makes perception”
thus the aesthetic is also mans imagination. Inherent in our perception. Now we have two bases for human intelligence. Concentration(desire) and aesthetic capacity(imagination).
Sorry for the late response. If you have any questions or I missed anything please do say something.
(06-03-2023, 04:37 PM)Guest Wrote: thus the aesthetic is also mans imagination. Inherent in our perception. Now we have two bases for human intelligence. Concentration(desire) and aesthetic capacity(imagination).
Sorry for the late response. If you have any questions or I missed anything please do say something. I feel like this invites the same objection. That the retarded have a capacity for desire and imagination which I believe is still greater than zero.
(06-03-2023, 09:34 PM)anthony Wrote: (06-03-2023, 04:37 PM)Guest Wrote: thus the aesthetic is also mans imagination. Inherent in our perception. Now we have two bases for human intelligence. Concentration(desire) and aesthetic capacity(imagination).
Sorry for the late response. If you have any questions or I missed anything please do say something. I feel like this invites the same objection. That the retarded have a capacity for desire and imagination which I believe is still greater than zero.
The difference is consciousness. Is everyone’s quality of consciousness the same? I would argue not. Many operate at the level of habit. As you age the law of habit gets stronger and stronger and thus old people have a lesser quality of consciousness(you have most probably observed this about the elderly). I don’t think you have consciousness at the base line of just being human.
Animals operate without self-conscious unlike (many)humans. Life doesn't need self-consciousness to function, I don’t think they(the retarded) ever get to the level of desire or concentration needed for self-consciousness to manifest within them.
(06-03-2023, 10:17 PM)Guest Wrote: (06-03-2023, 09:34 PM)anthony Wrote: (06-03-2023, 04:37 PM)Guest Wrote: thus the aesthetic is also mans imagination. Inherent in our perception. Now we have two bases for human intelligence. Concentration(desire) and aesthetic capacity(imagination).
Sorry for the late response. If you have any questions or I missed anything please do say something. I feel like this invites the same objection. That the retarded have a capacity for desire and imagination which I believe is still greater than zero.
The difference is consciousness. Is everyone’s quality of consciousness the same? I would argue not. Many operate at the level of habit. As you age the law of habit gets stronger and stronger and thus old people have a lesser quality of consciousness(you have most probably observed this about the elderly). I don’t think you have consciousness at the base line of just being human.
Animals operate without self-conscious unlike (many)humans. Life doesn't need self-consciousness to function, I don’t think they(the retarded) ever get to the level of desire or concentration needed for self-consciousness to manifest within them.
We're still talking stronger, lesser, etc. If even a single non-retard is not "conscious" in this sense we're still talking about questions of degree.
(06-03-2023, 11:14 PM)anthony Wrote: (06-03-2023, 10:17 PM)Guest Wrote: (06-03-2023, 09:34 PM)anthony Wrote: (06-03-2023, 04:37 PM)Guest Wrote: … … …
We're still talking stronger, lesser, etc. If even a single non-retard is not "conscious" in this sense we're still talking about questions of degree.
“What if retard means non-conscious?”(kek, this didn’t need to be added)
Degree was orginally in reference to “learning speed.” What I am proposing about human intelligence destroys the reasoning that it’s just a difference in time to understand things. It’s no longer a linear length but a staircase with larger and larger stairs.
The difference between the conscious and non-conscious is connection to the symbols in relation to the sub-conscious. The non-conscious in this way still have a sub-conscious but are without volition, or ability to focus for self development of intellectual structures and ergo no access to logic(aesthetic relationship between symbols).
If you’re trying to say that a maybe slow but normal guy could be without conscious I would say that by nature of what I’m proscribing to consciousness and non-consciousness this would be impossible. He could never get past certain things that are possible for the conscious. No level of monkey training could get him to do task that are beyond the capacity of autodidactic-autonomic learning.
(06-03-2023, 07:57 AM)Guest Wrote: i get it - it's a hard balance to strike between creating fully normie-assimilated sons or keyed-in sons who resent you for isolating them from modern spiritual sickness. it's just an unfortunate situation of what is normal being totally repugnant and degenerative, and what is principled and reverent of natural order being cause for ostracization by THE MANY
i just wonder at what point you decide that the benefits of socialization do not outweigh sticking to your guns with regards to parenting, at the risk of foregoing some of those formative milestones. false dichotomy i know but generally it is the truth
this is the proverbial bridge-jumping moment: do you sacrifice yourself and your children to lies and degeneracy for the purposes of conformity, or do you maintain your principles at the risk of being "weird." homeschooling can be, if nothing else, a true test of the dissident spirit The false dichotomy is just a false dichotomy and not generally the truth. If sending your kid to public school was sacrificing them to lies and degeneracy, nobody who went to a public school would post here. I can find thousands of blog posts by kids raised in ultra-conservative environments who are now thoroughly zog'd. Isolating your kids only works for so long. Eventually they'll have internet access and leave home. They have to understand why you're right for themselves, or you'll lose in the end.
My concern isn't a kid being weird, my concern is a kid not understanding boundaries and not being aware of how social perception operates. It's not about conformity, it's about Winning.
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