Learning, Teaching, Growing, Maturing…Nurturing Genius!
By Stu Leventhal - A NEW TALE
Telling students what is valuable to study and what is more valuable to know than other things is not preparing students for handling whatever they will encounter in their future.
What we need to do is give students the skills and tools they need to have the confidence for rising to the occasion when confronted by problems and challenges which as of yet are mostly unforeseen. We also have to teach them, to the best of our abilities, how to use what is available to them, all around them, for problem solving as well as for living life more fully and enjoyably.
Each student will have to use what is learned in their own way depending on their own particular situations they get immersed in. For example; creative writing instruction for penning a sci-fi, short tale, may not be appropriate advice for another student who has a history class, homework assignment to write an essay about the American Civil War. One is fiction and the other nonfiction but both require creative writing skill, good grammar and proper language usage to succeed.
First we give our students the tools they need then we must get out of the students way so they can play and explore using those tools. The object of schooling is not to turn kid’s minds into repeats or duplicates of our own minds and our ways of perception. We want something better for the next generation!
As we pass down our very best knowledge and wisdom our decisions on who is involved to receive the bounty of knowledge needs to have nothing whatsoever to do with the financial status of children and students. The standing in the community of one’s parents or child guardians or ancestors should have little to do with teaching kids. Man’s knowledge and wisdom must be available for all who seek it if society and mankind is to grow and prosper.
We wish to pass down our best knowledge so the next generations can continue where the past generations left off and thus mankind as a whole always moves forward.
Thus, the whole idea that good and great education is only for those whose families can afford to enroll their kids is just absurd!
You cannot fill all the universities up with the rich kids, give them diplomas so they get the best, highest paying, cushiony jobs and then be surprised when the poor folks are unhappy and revolt. It should also be no surprise when your jails are filled by mostly the poor community members, since we’ve given them limited means of making a decent living.
Education is for all who wish to partake!
Many of my peers, artists in every genre; dance, sculpture, painting, writing… say school often gets in the way of real, natural creativity. But that does not mean schooling cannot help even our so called naturally ‘born gifted’ artists to better develop, grow and mature their own styles faster and with more precision, accuracy and marvel.
Art being, as many feel, a quest for self-discovery; one must always challenge oneself to find out what we are really capable of. You never know what you can do until you push yourself to attempt the next level.
Never be complacent with a high mark from a professor, scholar or critic.
Since art is always morphing and reinventing itself, schools can offer opportunity for understanding and vital, insightful instruction even to our masters!
I am a fan of education and teaching and well-meaning instruction and learning, mentoring, tutoring and practice, practice, practice to equip our young students as well as older students for living fuller lives. One is never too old to learn! Never stop learning!
But, I just do not feel teaching is being done very well, responsibly or even being practiced fairly for the individual students or are our educational institutions and scholarly organizations in power showing great results.
Many of the certificates of graduation and degrees are not worth the paper they are printed on. Artists especially but students of all kinds must impress with their portfolios and body of work in the end!
Modern schooling paid for or provided by the State is poor, neglectful and often harmful and impeding to students’ growth development and even health. Schools often sprout low self-esteem and place doubt in their charges minds on many fronts.
Knowledge, surely, is something worth passing down from generation to generation. But what is more important is that each generation improves upon the last! Topics of study must meet the present community’s needs.
I can clearly see the need for incubators of pristine thought; the human produced world running as chaotic as it often does. But if one declares its sole purpose is to prepare youth for adult life and adults keep screwing up year after year, generation after generation when do the institutions of higher education with whom we put our faith into for developing and preparing our future leaders start to take responsibility for their inferior products and dubious end results.
Working on learning how to write well and reading the very best masters of literature are still the most important advice I can hand down to any enthusiastic student!
Fiction and nonfiction, of all genres are packed with life lessons.
There is a reason that genius is passed down from generation to generation. Truth and wisdom is not exclusive for one time period or only relevant to a long, lost era. Real knowledge transcends time and place and is applicable wherever you are, at any time.
*Whatever your goals and ambitions are, learning how to communicate and write better will help you get closer to achieving your dreams.
The best laid plans are not meant to be implemented alone. You cannot face down all adversity life and living will throw at you all by yourself all the time. Read A NEW TALE by Stu Leventhal. Learn how to write great!
You are going to need to use your writing skills over and over throughout your lifetime; shouldn’t your writing skills be the very best they can be?
Learn how to write persuasively! Intelligently! Clearly! Imaginatively!
WRITE IMPRESSIVELY!
*In our modern digital world, where everyone owns a handheld device, often one’s writing is the only thing that other people have to gage us by!