pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on mon 30 aug 04
Hi Lee,
Cool...
Interesting mentions...hmmmmmmmm...
...a little foray below, and amid them...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Love"
> You know, we probably shouldn't blame it all on the art
teachers.
No, we should not.
> I
> heard someone interviewed on NPR who has a new book out on
drawing. He
> said that what they have discovered, is that at a certain
level of
> development, a child's language ability expands
explosively and
> outstrips their ability to draw.
I would recognise, that one reason for the appearance ( at
some point,) of an
accelerated
developement of verbal 'language' resorts, or for the
appearant
decision to invest attentions or focus in productions of
spoken language,
(or, that is, simultaneously, at
the expense of increasing facility in
other modes of interaction or communication, ) evolves in
practice from the
neglect by grown-ups, of benevolent interactions in these
other
modes, of other more global
modes, except for the crudest of them, and is,
then, a resort
of the Child's increasing appreciation that 'that', that
spoken-verbalizeing, is about
all the dullards will interact with or validate as for some
interpersonal connections (safety and recognition) ,
fleeting or tenuous as they may
be, while
the
whole, more
global, paralinguistic 'communications' possibilities tend
to atrophy,
since they do remain ignored, tyhey become frustrated, and
or are by
then, being
withdrawn from by the Child to favor the more abstract venue
of
verbal interface, of speech...of managing abstractions...
This would not be the case otherwise, as far as I can see...
I remember that phase in my own experience, and I sympathise
with any Child
having to endure it...sadder yet, once they get used to it,
they pretty much become
it. Or, there is that danger anyway...a danger, which for
others having succumbed, occasions for Children, the
coersion to adapt ( or reduce) themselves to it...or, to
become it...in
turn...
This is close to the heart of the matter, that I gripe
about all-the-time...
>This causes them to get
frustrated with
> drawing,
A particular frustration which they would not have, unless
they were
'in' school? I mean, is anyone else obligeing them TO
'draw'?
>and they lean more toward language for their expression.
Or, simultaneously, for their repression...
I remember Children being frustrated with that, too...or,
remaining so, to some degree, for-ever after...as to assume
for that matter,
the formes-frustre, of the adults they in-time, become...
> He
> also said, that while most people think that drawing is a
"right brain"
> task, they have found in MRI research, that in gifted
artists, drawing
> it is a forebrain task.
I suppose, so would the rest of Life be...for the most part,
but for the incidental recourse to ratinocination or forays
into more-or-less 'pure' (abstraction or formlized)
intellection, when,
by the sympathy's blessings of intuition and other guidence,
it seems
appropriate to do so...or, like other things, it may be a
matter of taste, or of acquired taste, as well...to even do
so at all...
>There is a lot of frontal activity
trying to
> cognize images in their heads and transferring them to the
paper or
> canvas.
...and to transfer them into a lot 'else', as well...like,
most of all,
trying to grasp in some useful way, how to negotiate the
politics of the
situation, and, to reconcile it's import...and what to do
about it...
It seems to me, that Children are mostly emotional beings
( or, in a manner of
speaking anyway, they are, or, after a certain point they
are,) and that, is the primary actuality
in which other facilities, other skills, other modes of
interaction, or mediacies, or barter, or barter modes of
'communication' are accomidated...elected...resorted to...
(Maybe the term feeling-modes would be a better choice, of
their initial situation anyway, as,
'emotion' maybe turns out to resolve not so much on feeling
in a direct sense,
as, on attempts to manage those feelings as one does not
want to feel, or does not want to express appearing to feel,
or, the
consequences of that...or, again, the
[management of the]
politics of the situation best not be overlooked - it
certainly is not overlooked by them, by Children...nor, by
adults in
their own more-or-less
not-electing-to-be-very-conscious-of-it kind-of-way, by
adults or other victims, in
their own presumtion, accomidation and conditioning to
become those
'politics'...and to incogniscantly impose them on
Children...ot, to do so, 'emotionally'...)
>In unskilled drawers, drawing is a rearbrain
activity, mostly a
> motor activity.
Hmmm...yes...makes sense to me...a screwdriver resorted to,
for want of a trowell...or, long addition and linial
subtraction
resorted to for want of Algebra...about like the rest of it,
for that matter, no?
Or binary verses analogue...
Or...
Language is 'Algebra' anyway, is it not?
It seems to me, it is...except that in formal written
Algebra, the qualifiers as are parenthetical, are noted,
and, in verbal word language, generally, they are not. In
spoken word matters, one is supposed to guess or infer them
to ascertain the verity of an equation...or, worse yet, to
decide of what the symbols represent in other terms as well,
whose ralation is in some way, being managed as an
equation...or as parts of one...are what is being 'said'...
> I also heard Dr. Temple Grandin interviewed. She is an
animal science
> professor and is autistic. Her recent book is titled
Thinking In
> Pictures. You can read a little about it here:
> http://www.grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.html
>
> She said that she didn't know that other people
thought
> with words until she heard a scientist say that before
language, human
> beings could not make things because they could not think
the process
> out before they did it. Grandin thought this was absurd,
Yes, I agree...it is an absurd assertion, or a mistaken one
anyway, whose absurdity lie in 'how' (more than 'that',) it
is
mistaken...
I would like to see the kinds of 'things' that the
'scientist' in question, has made, or, can 'make'. I mean,
aside from summary interpolations which are
verbalized, about matters as he or she apprehends in terms
of 'word' symbol-management abstracts, or assumes to manage
an abstract model, without
refering to 'what' the model represents, as if there was
only the 'model' or as if that was the thing (it
represents)...which things-it-represents, are, unbeknownst
to, or are over
his or her
head, or, maybe outside of it...
> because she
> always thought in images and not words and this is also
how she works
> out creating new equipment to use with livestock.
...well...one may hope she 'thinks' about 'that', a little
more as well.
If by 'Livestock' (and a glance at her article
seems to affirm,) we mean our unhappily poised
ungulate domitae charges, whom we have unilaterally obliged
to become 'bse' hosts by making them eat eachother, so that
we may in turn acquire the
complaint from eating their miserable diseased carcases, or,
in our
assimilating derivitives of them...but then too, for us to
acquire the
complaint, may just
render moot or of diminishing interest anyway, the
contentions of 'how' we 'think', or, if we do (or did) at
all...
> So after
hearing this,
> she started asking other persons how they figured out
problems and they
> all said to her that the used language to solve problems.
Maybe that IS the 'problem' with them...or, they, are the
problem...with 'it'...but too, there are other problems
afoot as well...and some of them lie in how we do not 'see'
them.
Curious...anyway...
Like her maybe, in this sense anyway, if not in others, I
also 'think' in pictures, and, if I
pay attention to the pictures in the approximately correct
way, or, as or if I may in effect, slow-down the
three-dee-all-at-once movie of something, I can
narrate or describe then, more or less, mostly a great deal
'less', into
words, some of the features or attributes of what is
represented in or by the pictures, ( which 'words' then, are
never-the-less, also 'pictures', or inverse exponents of
them, but I gather, also, that
few experience 'them' in that way....but with me anyway, it
is never, or seldom, the
other way around - that I am obliged to translate
word-thinking into 'pictures'.
Words are the moziac tiles I try and fit over the already
'there' of 'picture'...
This is an interesting area of consideration...thanks for
the fun mentions Lee...
How is your sense of this, with you?
Do you 'think' in pictures? Or in 'words'?
What do you think?
Sometimes...it seems kind of hard to say...doesn't it...? It
does for me anyway...
a reference from literature ( ironically) as just came to
mind...was a line from a Henry James short story called "The
Beast in the Jungle"...
A lady, conversing with a plaintive fellow, as he was
beginning a sentence with "I think..."
Where she interrupted, to swiftly say, "Don't...unless you
have to..." ('think', that is...)
I think she was right...
> in Mashiko, Japan
Phil
el ve
Elaine Ray on tue 31 aug 04
I have also met Dr. Temple Grandin and read her books. As she learned to
live with her own Autism she has been an firm advocate for others with
Autism and has always helped to advance and fine tune treatment for children
and adults with autism.
Phil, please take a deeper look at what Dr. Grandin has done to make the
existence of the livestock better before you berate her for being part of
the livestock industry. True, she hasn't stopped the industry, or even tried
to stop the industry, but she has had to fight hard to persuade others that
there are more humane ways to treat the animals. This is a woman who lays
on the ground with and inbetween the cows to get their perspective as she
designs her systems! Dr. Grandin may not be able to change whole industry,
but at least she has done an incredible job trying to make it better in her
own way.
Thanks for taking the time to listen,
Elaine Ray
Raleigh, NC
Lee: I also heard Dr. Temple Grandin interviewed. She is an
animal science professor and is autistic. Her recent book is titled
Thinking In Pictures. You can read a little about it here:
http://www.grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.html
Lee: because she always thought in images and not words and this is also
how she works out creating new equipment to use with livestock.
Phil: ...well...one may hope she 'thinks' about 'that', a little
more as well.
If by 'Livestock' (and a glance at her article seems to affirm,) we mean
our unhappily poised
ungulate domitae charges, whom we have unilaterally obliged to become 'bse'
hosts by making them eat eachother, so that we may in turn acquire the
complaint from eating their miserable diseased carcases, or,
in our assimilating derivitives of them...but then too, for us to acquire
the complaint, may just render moot or of diminishing interest anyway, the
contentions of 'how' we 'think', or, if we do (or did) at all...
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