Spirituality Guide

I was in a course years back where they divided humans into two categories - you will find that almost all the self-improvement courses do this - and theirs were Scanners and Divers. Scanners looked lightly on a lot of subjects, learning a little here and there, skimming across the breadth of human knowledge. Divers were the experts, the people who thoroughly delved into one or just a few subjects, learning the intricacies of their choices.

We went through exercises and questionnaires, discussion and lecture, and at the end, both the lecturer and I came to an agreement that I was a Diving Scanner. Now I know it was more about being lateral, but at the time it was an ‘Aha!’ moment.

The point is, none of this came out in the school system; I had teachers who tried with me, ones who thought I could make something of myself if only I’d put in the effort, but the system was wrong for me. I coasted through it. I never found the flame of learning that would ignite my passion. There was little or no attempt to adjust the curricula (and I came through in a time of change, so there were a few different ones) to suit the child and while I suffered less than many others from the system, it took me years to get over having gone through it.
Under Siege - Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt
Surprisingly perhaps, the stuff I found useful later on in life had to do with the rote learning, with the bits and pieces of factual stuff that got drummed into us. Being able to estimate, knowing how to spell and write properly, knowing the basics of math - all these have helped me along the way. The way-out theories on how to teach, on politically correct euphemisms, and the touchy-feely stuff designed to equalise boys and girls never did anything for my life. Knowing how to cut metal, use a lathe, layout a straight line and make a right angle all came in handy.

I find it difficult to simply accept statements like ‘This is how things are!’ without adequate proof. Even in Scientific American, I would read avidly the background, the hypotheses, the testing methodology and the results, but would find myself donning my sceptic mask when they tried to tell me what it all meant. Many times I would find I could think of alternates to their conclusions, often without putting a lot of effort into it.

This doesn’t mean I deride Science, nor that I don’t advocate the pursuit of Knowledge for its own sake. Even now, my opinion of the Game of Life is it’s all about Knowledge. From Knowledge comes, on occasion, Wisdom, but that relies on the application of Knowledge, just as Knowledge comes from the application of Information.

I look at kids and see the wonder as they explore the world. I see the deadening (for most of them) of their expressions once the Education system gets hold of them. I know the delight I experience when i am learning something new and the thrill that comes when I find a piece of the jigsaw and a puzzle suddenly snaps into focus.

I learn differently from most - the techniques are the same, I read, I listen, I watch, I think, but the process inside is more like piling everything into a big box then being able to somehow see the bits that ’snick’ together to make a new datum.

This doesn’t make me better, just different to most. There have been times when I’ve ached to be able to learn as others do, to be able to construct a mental picture of something line by line, brick by brick and have a complete mastery of whatever it is.

While we’re on the subject of Education, I thought I’d indulge in a bit of a rant – hope you don’t mind too much.

When I was growing up, we had encyclopedias, not the CD-ROM version but an impressive set of 24 books in red and gold covers, smelling like quality books do, with fine quality pages that crackled slightly as you turned them. I’m not sure why we had them but it might have been a good looking, smooth talking, salesman had talked my mother into buying them, but I am glad we did.

My folks weren’t very educated at all so I learned early to go look it up. I was a little slow I guess in learning to be a good student - grades were good but the most consistent comment was always ‘could do much better’ and I drifted a bit after graduating.

But always I read. If I could read something good that was fine, but if I had nothing but westerns, I’d read them. I read a lot of SciFi and found it expanded my horizons - I’d see how someone with some knowledge of things would take it out to the extreme and portray how it might one day be used or become or change things.

Early on I started to read Popular Mechanics and later Popular Science - I moved later on to Nature and Scientific American. As I learned, I learned what my skill was - I’m a natural lateral person. It just took a while for me to get enough basic data into me before I could begin to make reliable jumps to connect unrelated information.

I guess I was always skeptical about things – my early background in religion had immunized me against Belief and my interest in Science and awareness of how it changed as new information became available simply reinforced the doubt about definitive statements.