----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
"There is NO connection, NO connection whatever, between the ability to think and think clearly and powerfully and express those thoughts orally in fluent English on the one hand and the ability to write or read on the other hand. An estimation of public intelligence on the basis of writing and/or reading exhibits a real ignorance about the nature of human intelligence.'
Yes, we bemoan the decline in "critical thinking," but what has been almost completely lost in the "developed" world is the ability to tell a story. No tests for that.
The three greatest story tellers I have known were a baggage porter, a black car mechanic, and a white, lesbian truck driver. None of them had more than a high school education at best. The porter might have been illiterate.
Analysis assumes a mostly stable finished universe; story telling assumes a flowing world of actors and listeners. Can we really say that one is more radical than the other? Does it have to be a contest?
Joanna