To smart for your own good

"whereas men in the earlier times said unscientific things with the vagueness of gossip and legend, they now say unscientific things with the plainness and the certainty of science.” – G.K. Chesterton

Have you ever listened to nerds argue?  Being a bit geeky myself, not only have I heard these arguments, I've been involved in them.  Spending hours discussing whether gravity affects everything, or whether things like ideas are exempt from the laws of nature, or talking about if I can know whether the floor will still be there next time I take a step, or discussing why the magnetic forces in that last Indiana Jones movie only acted on certain things.  Sometimes, we are just a little to smart for our own good.



I am not trying to tell anyone to stop being inquisitive, nor am I trying to say there is not merit in delving into philosophical realms.  What I am saying here is that some things are simple and that simple things need to be kept simple.  Sometimes we have the tendency of the super smart kid in the class who writes up 4 pages of equations to solve a problem, (and perhaps even ends up with the right answer at the end) when there was a very simple 2 line solution.  Just because there are complicated ways of looking at things and finding answers, does not mean we always need to use them. 2+2 can equal 4 without a 5 page proof. 


The scientist or academic may know words that send the rest of use scrambling for our dictionaries, or equations and mathematical theories that could give my computer a headache, but does that mean they know why the stars are there?  Perhaps they could give you complicated argumentation and theories and proofs, or even write a book on this, but isn't the answer really quite simple?  Ask a 3 year old girl.  She'll tell you why they are there.  'They look pretty.' 

You may be able to explain all kinds of things in terms of those equations you learned in school, and you may be able to spend hours arguing about the epistemological certainty of the latest philosophical theory, but do you really have more clarity about the world than you did when you where 3?   Learning may give you knowledge, but does knowledge give you truth and does truth give you wisdom?  Obviously, those steps can (and should) work that way, but do they? are you pursuing knowledge for the sake of knowing, or for the sake of truth? And are you pursuing truth for the sake of wisdom, or for the sake of superiority? 

Reality is, well, real. Its also all encompassing.  Facts, on the other hand, are just facts.  They are meaningless apart from some structure of reality. "The grass is green." is a statement of fact, but it does not have any meaning in and of itself.  Green grass only means something if I have eyes that can see it, and construct of reality in which the terms green and grass mean something.  Of course once you have that conception of reality, the statement becomes so much more than a statement of fact.  It conveys emotions. It speaks of springtime, and worms and lying on your back looking at the clouds, and freshly mowed lawns, and so much more. 

Education isn't about learning facts.  It's about understanding reality.  It's not about defining reality based on the facts, but rather about defining the facts based on the reality in which we live. If we start with green grass we have nothing, but if we start with reality, we suddenly have green grass!

When teaching our kids we shouldn't be focused on cramming their heads with facts, but rather on helping them understand reality.  We need to bring back the senses of touch and taste into education.  We need to keep God in education.  We need to see and understand the world and glory in the magic of it all.  If you can describe the motion of an atom with an equation you have achieved a certain kind of beauty, but don't forget that other kind of beauty.  The kind that comes from not knowing the details, but marveling in the wonder, joy and miracle of it all.  Your equation may be beautiful because of the way it so perfectly mathematically describes what you see, but don't forget about what it is that you are describing.  Why does that atom follow those mathematical forms?   Because its efficient?  Because it's beautiful? Because it just happens to be that way?  Because it was made that way? Sometimes the facts just can't capture the full picture!