I am encountering parents who tell me that their child can read, and even gets very good grades on the exams, but when it comes to speaking and forming information verbally and on their own, they cannot.
I was trained as a violinist. I learned how to sight read music. What happened was that I could sight read a lot of music by the time I was 18, but when it came to generating music myself I could not move. The music was handed to me, with little space to move outside of it, because one thing came after another, I followed. And, in my adult years, I met many so-called professionals, who could not move beyond a certain genre, they were stuck in the forms they played to make a living, I suspect. A very limited scenario overall. The very fabric of the instrument was not understood, instead a program of information was placed within, without real under-standing of the whole.
A lot of parents will have children study with someone who teaches them pieces, and the children will perform the prices and appear to be advanced, but in reality they are not. The real essence of playing is not developed. In the race to the top. to appear capable ends up catching up, and the parroting leads to limitations, as it is not real physical understanding.
One can learn to hop, but this does no mean that one can walk. What goes in is what comes out, what is allowed to be discovered, if such is given space and time, becomes the measure of the person. Knowledge and information without application does not lead to critical and creative thinking skill development. Even repetitive parroting without real definition in practical application to the whole, leads to programing without understanding the program. Lack of flexibility and changeability is the outcome.
In spending so much time only reading music, and I have to admit that I should have practiced the basics as the scales and the arpeggios more than I had, I became the experience of the measure of the phrases that I began to read, to block out and transform into music. So many are repeated, especially as I had remained in classical music, that when I encountered a new formation, I had to slow down way down to form that new form that deviated from a pattern. The exposure to patterns became the directive, and thus I lost confidence when not being able to be flexible in newer forms, or in moving into generating my own music. This too, overall developed insecurity, another wall of belief to have to filter through.
It is interesting , because at this point I have improved with beginners and intermediate players, and what I notice is that if I do not follow an established pattern and add improvisation to something, these beginners become upset because they want the norm, as they cannot hear through the added resonance. So, there is a problem when someone has not mastered something because they tend to want to hang on established forms, which overall means that they are not looking at the parts, and have already expected set formats as the basis, when this is not so in music, nor is this with words. One must know the parts so well and be aware of the effects of the parts on the whole at all times- this is real spatial development. Here, change can be handled and one is flexible within that. This is what a child uses to build their abstract map that becomes their directive that ends up separating them from reality, from the whole. It is this separation that leads to limitations, to a movement as knowledge and information without application. Thus, the dis-ease we see in our children is one of attention deficit. And we wonder why?
Now, imagine teachers in a room with twenty or more students, each with set patterns, the traditions and values of each family unit, trying to work with this in a classroom? They simply, by design, cannot possibly check the basics in every child. In space and time it does not exist with this established industrial format. Which is why I see so many discussions that realize the extremely important point that the parents are the ones responsible for the careful development of the child.
Overall, the format of a school imparting knowledge and information without application is a form that teaches a child how to “ hop only, without really learning to walk.”
So, now imagine that child that has learned to hop but not walk. What actions would be needed to slow that child down and patiently change the action of hopping to walking? If we look at Helen Keller, who was racing in her head with her own frustrations and lack of structure, this movement had become within her, like a speeding train, where her mind was in that rapidly moving train of information, so she could no longer see the reality outside her movement as her directives. She was completely ungrounded, and her parents did not have the patience and the time and the understanding to resolve this separation - because it is a separation from practical reality. What they did was find someone to do this for them. And that person spent many hours and much time bringing Helen back. How many parents have the time to do this?
In reality, all of us are racing in a train, hopping and not walking. And we are so locked in that we no longer see the practical reality landscape surrounding us. When we suddenly drop something, or when we trip and fall, or when we miss filling in that blank, of when we cannot answer a question, or solve a problem it is because we are racing as a “ hopping” action, and we are so entrenched in this that we don’t even realize it, and blame the consequence of this on the world around us, when it is us. We can really blame no one. And why, because there are those who realize this and take the time to “ revolve” themselves, they struggle and change. And these are actually very very very few, were this different then the problems of parents wanting the schools to solve the lack in their children would not exist. And the conversations about how this is needed would not exist, thus this means that this is you.
That child that can follow what is imparted as knowledge and information, in this world of lack of patience, and constant media impulse, for generations, has become a follower of knowledge and information without application only, thus when asked to generate, to self generate, they cannot slow down and reform themselves, because they are like Helen Keller, they have become the race of that information without application. To change this takes a lot of one on one interaction to correct and rebuild a new self directive program. Our schools are not there for this, which is why some will send their children to private schools, and as well spend large amounts to have the child tutored, because they understand how important it is to inform a child with the basic units, as the words, and that the child has the opportunity to apply themselves practically - this takes one on one interaction, and the labor piece must make enough to live so they can be there for the child.
I had to go back and retrain myself, it took hours, many many hours, and much reformation, which meant slowing down again and again and again, an action that is really no different than learning to walk. It is after all a physical world of space and time.
Our words are the perfect units to create structure, we can move them around, reform with them, we can give ourselves points of reference with them, they are the perfect tools of structure building. They are the perfect tools of building an ability to critique, to draw attention to the parts, to bring parts forward for attention, and then to reformat in creative ways, all of this done verbally to share abstractions that can then build an idea to share with another, to then take apart and tweek to make sure something is sound before following through into application. Words determine what we are able to make concrete, meaning what we are able to do and direct ourselves as in this world, because they show us how we see, how we notice things. Which is why the SAT tests are tests that look at the words you know, and I mean really know.
We are the words we know, the words we understand clearly, the words we have learned. If we have learned phrases, which can be ideas and beliefs and opinions, than it is as though we are hoping instead of walking, we are racing in a construct that is not equal to practical reality, and as such we lose our footing and cannot generate, and then we lose our self confidence, our self esteem, and we freeze, we lose directive capacity because we are not focused here, we become overwhelmed which leads to more chaos and dis -association from reality.
Techno Tutor, to build a sound mind because we are the words we know. A self empowerment tool to fill the gap as the need to allow parents to ensure that their child has the words to build an effective human being who has what it takes to become a success in this world.
Remember that becoming aware is a process, one that starts with “ crawling” and builds. Humans use language as a way to order our communication, thus we are the words we know, and I mean really know.
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