Monday, March 3, 2014

How are our children slowed down from an innate divergent thinking ability?


After being in an accident, I had a hard time driving down the highway without fear, without the memory of another car crossing the double yellow line and hitting me head on.
Memory has a way of holding onto values, and imagining a fear after an event. This can stay with someone for a while, and distort their ability to process information. In such a scenario, I was in memory, involved in pictures in my mind, and as such not seeing directly here. Which means I can hold images that distract me from here, and I lose a sense of being here.
In so many ways, if we realize all the excitement with television, the values impulsed of potential magic that is never really explained in detail, and this value is held onto as an emotional value, how long does this stay with a child? Do they imagine such things as what is promised, that has never been lived, and seems so exciting, and carry this with them, even into the classroom where they are asked to process other information that has none of the excitement that a television has with all the lights and the music? Can a false positive influence us as much as a car accident, and is this perhaps more difficult to realize because it seems so good to us? Do we waste time with this inner false positive from focus here?
We tend to think in terms of fear as the only side of emotional movement within ourselves as being something that takes our attention away from focus in reality, but the other side can do this just as much. ( And I do not want to say that being positive is bad, some of the things we see as positives are such, but when they are made a goal, without the steps made just as important on the way to the goal, then the steps are not enjoyed for the process and understanding of development as a value, a metaphysical carrot on a string as a gain can also create a “ separate reality” that takes focus away from here, and we learn more slowly.)
So, to use the example of a fear that lingers as past memory after an event happens, this same kind of behavior can happen to a child during the learning process, especially in school. And, what happens is that our words accumulate an inner value, that comes up and distracts attention from here, slowing us down. Thus, in many ways, blame and name calling does not correct this, if anything it only adds to it, because such behavior does not model direct seeing, which is what is slowing down an innate ability to process the details of our life.
If a child has had difficulty in English, for example, a fear can grow, and every time that child has to have English class, they have that same fear come up. During this period of fear, attention is not as clear as it can be, and then things are misunderstood. This accumulates and can spiral into more fear, like a fear is perpetuating itself. Sometimes, children grow out of this, and this takes some time, sometimes they don’t manage to stop, or have the opportunity to stop the fear and correct their focus.
Also, if there is peer group pressure and an embarrassment happens, this is a fear that can linger as well. We all have experienced this. When a child is already uncertain, such instances exacerbate the problem.
Some of these things are so subtle, that even if a teacher could handle some, they cannot possibly handle all of them.
When one is secure, it is easier to pull back into common sense. And we learn to do this as we get older, at least some of us do. Children that have a broad vocabulary tend to be able to do this more quickly, because they already have a structure that enables them focus. They have the words to structure them, and to move them through uncertainty, they have had more exposure to structure, which is why they have a greater vocabulary. And yet, one can learn a skill and have a lot of common sense, but not be able to explain.

Within this, a child in fear, just as I had in driving down the highway after an accident, cannot really see clearly, the words start to “ swim” and the information is then unclear. Probably a lot like reading words and not knowing the meaning, no sense of the form the words describe can be made. It is the same way driving down the road after an accident. Of course, more than likely, a car is not going to cross the yellow line, so I have to bring myself back, remember where I am, and realize the imagination triggered by fear is distorting reality. Perhaps, if we are taught to see directly, fewer accidents would occur.
There are two sides here. One is that if we do not know the words, we cannot understand the script. Two, is that if there are any values attached to words we have learned, it is hard to process a script of words, a paragraph. If our imaginations are rampant with values, then we will have a hard time focusing ourselves on what we are reading or hearing, and as such our ability to form an insight into what is presented will be limited. Then, we will not be able to generate enough of an understanding to have any level of critical reasoning skill.
This critical reasoning skill is present in young children. But, by the time they reach the third grade, this skill is no longer present at the previous levels. So, there is something that has accumulated that is diverting the natural learning ability and slowing it down. This can only be what has accumulated as memory. This memory must be of values that are in effect, distorting the ability of the child to process new forms of information. It is similar to having to bring oneself out of the fear, the distortion, of the after MATH of an accident, a mis-take.
I also had to do this while preforming many many times. If I knew the piece well enough, or my security with the form of the instrument was solid, then mishaps were quickly rebalanced. My trust within this also strengthened and playing became a real joy. It is no different with working with words.
The insight ability within this confidence is the ability to recognize structure/form with ease. To have a clear sense of structure within, without emotional triggers, to then realize a natural conceptual ability in relation to reality. This is why knowledge and information without practical application is useless. And one can really only surmise without direct experience in practical application. In this sense, we all know people who can be very aware of common sense solutions in the physical world, but cannot always explain themselves in words. 
So, overall, it is very important that our children have a broad vocabulary, especially in this age where so much knowledge and information is readily available through words, and that there are clear, direct, meanings to words without any memory of emotional values, a veil that blinds and distorts conceptual ability. In effect, I am saying that there is no reason why a child loses their divergent thinking ability that is present when they are young.
This ability is a natural ability, Somehow, it is clouded with values that effect children in any number of ways. We need only look to personality to understand the outcome.
We can clean this up, through ensuring that the building blocks, as words, are numerous and of clear meaning, so that emotions are not triggered - a wild imagination is not triggered - and instead the imagination can be used to help us see reality more clearly, and remain stable within our environments. This is what we all learn as time passes, but there is no reason that this is not lived consistently from the beginning.
Try this out for yourself. If you read something and there exists a resistance within, is it because you do not have a clear meaning for the words? Is it because you do not really know the words, or is it that it is difficult to see through emotional values present within? An indicator, is resistance, because words are just a description of here. Also, try and generate a clear meaning for each word, can you generate a clear definition for each word from the text? When we know something, it is not complicated, and it is easy to explain. Complicated means, we do not really understand.


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