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"Nobody ever brags about not knowing how to read, but people brag all the time about not knowing how to do math." This is not just math, it's virtually every s

"Nobody ever brags about not knowing how to read, but people brag all the time about not knowing how to do math." This is not just math, it's virtually every subject you learned in school. Imagine the following at a cocktail party: "I had to read Joyce, Whitman, and Hawthorne, but I never got the point of any of them." "I took a lot of history, it was a bunch of dates which I could never remember." "I took three years of Spanish, but I don't remember a word." Et cetera.

quacker 14y ago
You're right, but he's claiming this at a lower level. I imagine it's more embarrassing to have to ask, "What does this say?" than to have to ask, "How much change should I receive?"
excuse-me 14y ago
Same with engineering - just read any sunday paper home section article. Somebody will be saying that they can never assemble some piece of Ikea furniture. This stuff is designed so that a 5year old could follow instructions but anyone stylish has to look like they can never use their hands. Imagine you are an engineer and faced with a McD menu it would be fashionable to point and say = I'll have that one, I can never do words and numbers.
toomuchcoffee 14y ago
All perfectly understandable. It's called "the path less taken." A lot of people just don't click with formalized education at all in their early years. They just couldn't throw themselves behind all those authors and facts they're "supposed to" be up on. Some of them are too busy learning informally by dealing with the world around them -- i.e. with things like nature, work, and you know, other people. Then slowly grow to form their own view of the world, and seek their own path to obtaining a more structured comprehension of it -- which might well mean starting (on their own volition) formalized education sometime in their 20s or 30s -- or perhaps not. A great many who choose this route, or have it forced upon them may fail or flounder -- but a great many also don't, and end up with accomplishments for others to read about or hear about in those books, classes and received intuition that some people think are the only valid starting points to figuring out how to make a dent in the universe.

quacker 14y ago

You're right, but he's claiming this at a lower level. I imagine it's more embarrassing to have to ask, "What does this say?" than to have to ask, "How much change should I receive?"

excuse-me 14y ago

Same with engineering - just read any sunday paper home section article. Somebody will be saying that they can never assemble some piece of Ikea furniture. This stuff is designed so that a 5year old could follow instructions but anyone stylish has to look like they can never use their hands. Imagine you are an engineer and faced with a McD menu it would be fashionable to point and say = I'll have that one, I can never do words and numbers.

toomuchcoffee 14y ago

All perfectly understandable. It's called "the path less taken." A lot of people just don't click with formalized education at all in their early years. They just couldn't throw themselves behind all those authors and facts they're "supposed to" be up on. Some of them are too busy learning informally by dealing with the world around them -- i.e. with things like nature, work, and you know, other people. Then slowly grow to form their own view of the world, and seek their own path to obtaining a more structured comprehension of it -- which might well mean starting (on their own volition) formalized education sometime in their 20s or 30s -- or perhaps not. A great many who choose this route, or have it forced upon them may fail or flounder -- but a great many also don't, and end up with accomplishments for others to read about or hear about in those books, classes and received intuition that some people think are the only valid starting points to figuring out how to make a dent in the universe.