Monday, July 18, 2011
We have learned something when ...
90% of St. John's Annapolis was doing long readings and then finding something intelligent to say in a seminar or class (or demonstrate a theorem at the blackboard). The only way I could imagine cheating was having someone else write one of my essays, and I felt everyone else was an incompetent idiot. No one had a mystic vision of esoteric insight equal to mine so I was stuck with writing all my own papers. I could not settle for less.
JOKE: a railroad has a rule against gambling. A rabbi a priest and a minister are playing cards when they spot the conductor headed their way so they sit on the cards. The conductor asks the priest "were you playing cards" and the priest said "no" .. the conductor asks the minister "No" he replies. Then the conductor asks the rabbi who says "So who would I play with?"
I never cheated once in college.
As the years passed I gradually came to the conclusion that I have only begun to understand something when I can spontaneously explain it to someone extemporaneously for an hour or two from memory and maintain their interest. Only when we have internalized something to the extent that it becomes second nature have we really learned something. Memorization, rote learning, is a waste because a month after the exam one forgets everything and their is no passion. Occasionally someone becomes fascinated about history or literature or religion from what I say and they ask me if I am a teacher. The subject matter has to come alive within you like a fire kindled in a furnace and it must have an intensity sufficient to ignite that same fire in the mind of another. Until you achieve this you have learned nothing.
