Quote:
Originally Posted by Skull&Crossbones
Based on a lot of different people's descriptions of what being smart is, I feel even dumber. Can anyone explain why everyone's definition of smart seems to revolve around only knowledge? On Bloom's Taxonomy, knowledge is the lowest level of thinking. Analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating are much higher level. And even beyond that, why doesn't creative thinking count for as much or more than just knowing things? Just because you know things, doesn't mean you know how to use it or how it fits into the context of everything else. I don't have as many facts memorized as other people, but why should I need to when I have the world's knowledge a google search away (or worst case scenario, at the library)?
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Well...
Before there was Google, before there was LexisNexis, before you could access a decent encyclopedia in seconds, we had to memorize
first before we could begin to analyze, synthesize, evaluate, etc. We needed all of that knowledge in order to be or become creative, had to know before using knowledge.
I’m not certain that accumulated knowledge
is thinking. Knowledge is a sort of messy chest-of-drawers where we, haphazardly, stuff socks and underwear and spats and and school scarves and cuff links and collar stays and ties and other incidentals and when we need to dress formally (think formally) we’re able to use accumulated knowledge so that we’ll not forget our spats.
Yes, I’m the Worst Nightmare that anyone may have in playing any edition of Trivial Pursuit; I have a giant, teetering armoire bursting open with knowledge socks spilling onto the floor. But I use those socks for more-than-trivial pursuits.
I guess that I can only speak of my generation — we may have been the last with the need to accumulate and store knowledge in our minds.
I suppose that’s why many of us think so highly of the massive amount of bric-a-brac in our heads.
Sigh.