Kids are 'hot-housed' to use Sigel's apt terminology. In most schools, imagination is disregarded in favor of the rigors of sentence structure and voice tense. What sense does this make? The world's truly great writers (let alone its great thinkers) rarely obeyed convention. i realize the thinking goes that one must first know the rules in order to break them; but what about the neuroscience evidence--that there is a shockingly small window of time in which kids plastic minds may be used to their full advantage.
We waste those precious years absorbing sentence structure and passive voice? Formulaic learning should be the stuff of adolescent years. Sound ridiculous? Consider that by encouraging purely imaginative writing in a young child's most formative time period, you are almost without a doubt instilling a love of words that will translate to a love of reading. Reading a variety of authors will introduce the full craft of writing to a child and in all likelihood do a majority of the structural part of an English teacher's job.
Once that love of writing is instilled, it is easier both to maintain and to cultivate. Life will throw curves at every individual and the ability to articulate oneself and one's thoughts through words, as well as through pure imaginative speculation (day-dreaming) will serve the individual well cognitively (as Snowden & others have shown).
In later years, writing will become a means not only of translating wisdom to future generations, but of preserving family heritage, and also consolidating/ testing/ solidifying memory against the ravages of time.
We waste those precious years absorbing sentence structure and passive voice? Formulaic learning should be the stuff of adolescent years. Sound ridiculous? Consider that by encouraging purely imaginative writing in a young child's most formative time period, you are almost without a doubt instilling a love of words that will translate to a love of reading. Reading a variety of authors will introduce the full craft of writing to a child and in all likelihood do a majority of the structural part of an English teacher's job.Once that love of writing is instilled, it is easier both to maintain and to cultivate. Life will throw curves at every individual and the ability to articulate oneself and one's thoughts through words, as well as through pure imaginative speculation (day-dreaming) will serve the individual well cognitively (as Snowden & others have shown).
In later years, writing will become a means not only of translating wisdom to future generations, but of preserving family heritage, and also consolidating/ testing/ solidifying memory against the ravages of time.
It is a shame that our culture places so little value on the insights that the elderly have to offer us. Our American Ideals teach that Man is only as valuable as the work he is able to do. The average person seems either not to think they will get old, which is a sneaking suspicion i have (else, why so many smokers?) or perhaps they believe that when they get old, they will simply do it better.
In other cultures, in particular Asian cultures, the family hierarchy is sustained as mothers and fathers are revered and continue living with their children, even grand-children. Of course, this happens less nowadays than it once did--the change is certainly not for the better, as the Western influence spreads out to cover the globe.
Why do we not have time (or make time) to revere our elderly? To dissuade them of the notion that they are second-class citizens? Rather, perhaps, then lay complete blame on those in my generation and surrounding, we can ask this question from the reverse--have American Ideals created, in the mindset of the elderly, something akin to a belief that it is okay that they are treated with such disrespect??
Another question: are there quantifiable differences between the elderly American and the elderly Asian of today? In other cultures, there is no such concept of retirement, is there? And how at odds is this with what we've been told for years of our proud individualism? Perhaps our own cognitive distortions on these two realms--the young worker and the old retiree -- are what prompt us to very nearly ignore the elderly and house them in facilities that distribute industrialized care with the workers, CNAs, doing most of the care who make the least money!
What can be done to reverse this trend?
In other cultures, in particular Asian cultures, the family hierarchy is sustained as mothers and fathers are revered and continue living with their children, even grand-children. Of course, this happens less nowadays than it once did--the change is certainly not for the better, as the Western influence spreads out to cover the globe.
Why do we not have time (or make time) to revere our elderly? To dissuade them of the notion that they are second-class citizens? Rather, perhaps, then lay complete blame on those in my generation and surrounding, we can ask this question from the reverse--have American Ideals created, in the mindset of the elderly, something akin to a belief that it is okay that they are treated with such disrespect??Another question: are there quantifiable differences between the elderly American and the elderly Asian of today? In other cultures, there is no such concept of retirement, is there? And how at odds is this with what we've been told for years of our proud individualism? Perhaps our own cognitive distortions on these two realms--the young worker and the old retiree -- are what prompt us to very nearly ignore the elderly and house them in facilities that distribute industrialized care with the workers, CNAs, doing most of the care who make the least money!
What can be done to reverse this trend?
The elderly must retake a position of value in our society. This will come as a result of some effort on their part and some effort on behalf of younger generations. Just as we should teach the children, the elderly should be writing--beginning before they're elderly! Snowden's work CLEARLY showcases the myriad benefits, and that is what must be talked about more (and more responsibly) by the mainstream press.
*read 'Conceptual Split?' by KR Fisher, et al.
