puddicat
Well-Known Member
You keep throwing the education bit at us - I would rather be open to alternative, thought out ideas than the "if it isn't in a book, it can't be right" theory of most education.
Ahh you've tagged on the bit about "if it aint in the book..." I don't believe that.
I think we're a bit screwed up about education in this country, I suppose because education has always related to class so maybe its class we're screwed up about.
Lets take the analogy to a skill where you can see how good people are. In sports or performance art or even riding, there's no issue about how good someone is because you watch them do what they do and its clear. If you say a novice rider can't jump a 4' fence that doesn't imply they are a second class citizen, only that they have not reached that level of skill. I could continue this but I'm sure you can imagine. We take it for granted in skill based subjects that there are different levels of skill that allow different levels of performance - think about hairdressing...
In knowledge based subjects the same applies. People have different amounts of education and it allows them to know about and understand the same subjects to different levels. This allows them to perform jobs at different levels. Unlike skills, its not obvious how much someone knows, its not even obvious to someone how much they know, its all very abstract. But it is possible to work it out - do the mental equivalent of get on a horse and ride it. It's a bit easier to know whether someone knows enough to be competent at the job they do using their knowledge but not always. My point was that there are people who do things in therapy land (I'm sure with the best intentions and belief in what they're doing) that can easily be shown to be pointless (at best). If they knew it was pointless they probably wouldn't do it. But what is required to get to that point is more education.
Now, all the second class citizen, calling us fools thing is not implied by my comment. My comment was simply objective and without emotion. However people can cope with being useless at maths or hockey but get a bit touchy about the education thing. I have a suspicion that is why you think debates should include everybody regardless of level of knowledge. It's a concession to the idea that nobody likes to think they have nothing to offer on a subject. that's true in absolute terms, there is always the possibility that someone might add something useful to a debate but the likelihood shrinks as the level of complexity of the debate increases. I was being deliberately absolutist and , oh go on then provocative early in this thread when I said back people have nothing to offer the debate. I don't really believe that, but I do believe it is very unlikely they will add anything that isn't known already.
Ahh you've tagged on the bit about "if it aint in the book..." I don't believe that.
I think we're a bit screwed up about education in this country, I suppose because education has always related to class so maybe its class we're screwed up about.
Lets take the analogy to a skill where you can see how good people are. In sports or performance art or even riding, there's no issue about how good someone is because you watch them do what they do and its clear. If you say a novice rider can't jump a 4' fence that doesn't imply they are a second class citizen, only that they have not reached that level of skill. I could continue this but I'm sure you can imagine. We take it for granted in skill based subjects that there are different levels of skill that allow different levels of performance - think about hairdressing...
In knowledge based subjects the same applies. People have different amounts of education and it allows them to know about and understand the same subjects to different levels. This allows them to perform jobs at different levels. Unlike skills, its not obvious how much someone knows, its not even obvious to someone how much they know, its all very abstract. But it is possible to work it out - do the mental equivalent of get on a horse and ride it. It's a bit easier to know whether someone knows enough to be competent at the job they do using their knowledge but not always. My point was that there are people who do things in therapy land (I'm sure with the best intentions and belief in what they're doing) that can easily be shown to be pointless (at best). If they knew it was pointless they probably wouldn't do it. But what is required to get to that point is more education.
Now, all the second class citizen, calling us fools thing is not implied by my comment. My comment was simply objective and without emotion. However people can cope with being useless at maths or hockey but get a bit touchy about the education thing. I have a suspicion that is why you think debates should include everybody regardless of level of knowledge. It's a concession to the idea that nobody likes to think they have nothing to offer on a subject. that's true in absolute terms, there is always the possibility that someone might add something useful to a debate but the likelihood shrinks as the level of complexity of the debate increases. I was being deliberately absolutist and , oh go on then provocative early in this thread when I said back people have nothing to offer the debate. I don't really believe that, but I do believe it is very unlikely they will add anything that isn't known already.
