[CW] Dumb down not justified

[Ed Tanton]

Wrong John. "Learning" can be very different for different people. MANY 
people are visually oriented for learning. If they want to remember 
something it needs to be-somehow-a visual experience. My younger son (Chris 
21) frequently amazes people when the subject of some movie dialog or other 
lengthy scene of words comes up. He can recite chapter and verse with no 
effort, word-for-word. It DOES require interest, and hearing several times, 
but when you hear it, it's amazing. Especially when it is frequently years 
in the past. Obviously a key for him is LIKING the object, and at least 
hearing-and possibly seeing-it several times.

My point with that is that learning is a multi-faceted ability, with very 
different requirements, primarily based on the way a person's brain works. 
This was a fundamental tenet when I was taking Education classes about 12 
years ago. I learned then, by the way, that-even at my then relatively 
advanced age (mid-40's) -there WAS a way for me to make an "A" in any 
course I took, if I was willing to do the work. It involved good notes in 
highlightable ink; highlighting the book; re-writing the highlighted parts 
of the book in the same (highlightable) ink; then going back and 
underlining the highlighted notes to study for the test. A LOT of work... 
but absolutely wonderful for me-since I had never really had even a 
half-decent study technique before that (despite what I had otherwise 
believed.) And w/o one, life in a learning environment can be difficult.

What matters is that we each find a method that works, for each of us.

P.S. I had a fairly hard time learning the code myself. But I did what 
everybody did, memorized it, practiced copying it, and got better. A LOT 
better. I was doing 35-40wpm as a teenager on a straight key. Got tired of 
THAT, and got a bug. Got tired of THAT and got an electronic keyer. Now I'm 
back to mostly a bug. SOME people just seem to have a mental block about 
it, and I have often wondered if those people were somehow 
aurally-learning-challenged. Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

///snip started learning Morse code in 1956.  I learned it visually. ///snip

///snip

>Right there, you started the problem. You don't learn a "language" based
>on sound "visually.

///snip


73 Ed Tanton N4XY <n4xy@earthlink.net>

Ed Tanton N4XY
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Marietta, GA 30068-3466

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