geeks

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Gordon Fitch wrote:
>
>>Autodidacts will likely have either rejected
>>or been rejected by the established authoritarian-hierarchical
>>academic system and will thus feel attracted to models like
>>Kropotkin's which legitimate their approach to information
>>and learning.
>
>This seems a bit overstated. Yeah, schools can suck; lots of dumb 
>rote learning and rituals of obedience designed to turn one into a 
>well-functioning cog in the social factory. But...students often 
>don't know what they don't know, and they don't know how to evaluate 
>the fragments of knowledge they're acquiring. There's a lot to be 
>said for a good teacher with a good syllabus; structure and 
>discipline don't always do the work of the devil, after all. Of 
>course, if you push me, I'll even offer a qualified defense of the 
>canon.
>
>Doug

Rote learning & imitation (which demand a kind of obedience to a 
certain degree) may be tedious, but I don't think you can acquire 
proficiency in a foreign language without it (once you grow beyond 
early childhood).

speaking from experience,

Yoshie