Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The Learning Rant

            Once again I seem to have been neglecting my blog, and if I have any, my readers. Luckily tonight I sat down and watched a tv show that made me want to share my thoughts with the internet. The program was a PBS episode of American Masters. Normally I don't really enjoy watching PBS's programs, I tend to prefer shows that I can mindlessly follow, but that are still mentally stimulating (if that makes any sense). Tonight however my dad had control of the remote, and just happened to stumble upon the show. The American Master being documented was David Geffen.
           For those who don't know David Geffen is a billionaire. He started from the bottom with the dream of being involved in motion pictures. He eventually made it there, producing films such as Risky Buisness, and Beetlejuice. This of course came after his astonishing success in the music industry, discovering artists such as Jackson Brown, and The Eagles. I myself had never heard of David before, but after the episode I know a lot about his life and success.
          This got me thinking about a lot of the other information trapped in my brain. Some of it I learned at school but not a lot. Sure there's the basic math, and some history, not to mention sentence structure and junk like that, but there's so much more that I know. My dad and I were talking tonight and I said that I was not one of the smartest kids, if anything I was medium-smart, I just knew how to work the system when it came to highschool. I never really retained much of what my teachers taught me in the classroom, mainly because when it came to stuff like that, I either found it uninteresting, or had already learned it on my own.
          I've always looked at the extremely smart and successful people in the world who say they are self educated with awe. I wanted to be them. I wanted to pick up a bunch of books and know everything about how to build a computer, or know how to do advanced math, but I became convinced that my brain just wasn't wired to do that kind of stuff (especially the math). Looking back now though I would say that I am self educated, or better yet, experience educated.
        I guess a good example of this would be my knowledge of Greek Mythology. It's been a few years since I've paid much attention too it, but I have a surprising amount of knowledge stored on the subject. It's such a random subject but I fell in love with it at an early age. How early you might ask? Honestly I can't remember how old I was, but i do know that it all started in the fifth grade.
      My teacher kept a collection of encyclopedia's in the front of the classroom, and whenever we had a question about a specific thing she would have us look it up for ourselves. I don't remember how it came about, but I asked her who Medusa was. She directed me to the encyclopedia, and I got my answer, as well as a note that said "for more info see pegases." Needless to say from that moment on I was hooked. I grabbed every book I could find on the subject, and devoured every myth I came into contact with. By the time I reached middle school I knew enough on the subject that my teachers actually let me help them teach that portion of the class. Just a couple day's ago my mom was teaching her class about the subject and teased me that I could probably go teach the class for her.
       While I haven't spent as much time studying other subjects quite as extensively, I've collected a large store of random knowledge over the years. I may only consider myself medium-smart, but i guess it really depends on what your definition of smart is. No one is really dumb, they're just smart in their own ways.
       Well now that I've reached a point that I had never planned on coming to when I started this post I think I will call it a night. Hopefully whoever reads this finds it entertaining, if not thought provoking.