It seems that this conversation on "cool" has really sparked a fire in Honey. I left early to do some work at the co-op, allowing her to sleep in. When I arrived home yesterday after a morning of work, she had already been outlining some ideas for our lunch discussion on the topic.
Lucky for me I had mentioned the conversation offhandedly to a friend who teaches philosophy at another local college that morning. She suggested I introduce the concept of the bell curve to Honey. When I explained how it works to Honey, and applied it to the concept of intellegence, she was fascinated.
She asks many insightful questions, making sure she understood it thoroughly. She also double checked some of her facts about the education before the public system was put in place. I loved watching her mind digesting everything, between bites.
She was fairly quick to hypothesize that introduction of mandatory public education might the a contributing reason for the twisted concept of cool. I called her to expand and support her hypothesis. She had applied the concept of the bell curve in intellegence, to the fact that mandatory public education meant that not only the brighter, upper half of the curve went to school ,but the lower, less intelligent half. The mass of students was in the middle, the power would lay there. Since the masses would not like feeling stupid or less than those at the upper end, they used their power to develop a way to make themselves feel good about themselves: the concept of cool. They might not be able to change their intellegence, but they could create an artifical concept and make it desirable. Since they did not have the goods to be the best and brightest, they decided to set a simple set of standards that anyone could attain, if they had the nerve to break social standards. That is how "cool" got to be so twisted around.
(I have paraphrased this, deleting from her teenage speech all the "totally"'s and such.)
We took extra time after out appointment to drive through the park a bit, to work through these ideas further. I encouraged her to choose one notebook and start writing some of these ideas out, for her to work through over the year. I love this sort of deductive reasoning. She seemed so excited putting the ideas together as well.
She agreed that we should look into the book and movie recommendations from Jove (Thanks dear! ) . Another friend suggested the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy," and we are adding that to our idea list. She wants to try to a new approach and add sociology this year, that is heavy on discussion and finding research that supports or disproves our hypothesis. It think it will be a great exercise in critical thinking, and a lot of fun for us both.
As such...any other movie or book suggestions are appreciated.
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6 comments:
I love your reflections on these conversations. So much growth and learning happens through spontaneous discussions. :-)
It is great that she is so excited. And I think that even if you just did this orally, as lunchtime conversation, you would achieve a lot. (You could make brief notes for the portfolio.)
Developing the ability to make an argument and support it with evidence is so important. And it takes lots of practice. Trying out ideas. Playing with them. Making mistakes. Doing more research. All are worthwhile activities even if no research paper comes out of it at the end.
After all she is only 15 (Is she 15?) If she does this kind of thing mainly orally this year, she will storm through written papers in a couple of years time.
You go. This sounds great. And really fun for you, too.
BTW, there is lots of interesting material on girls cultures out there. Remind me in a month or so and I'll see if I can find some specific suggestions.
I really like her argument. I'd like to know whether she thinks it goes towards a suggestion that only the academically intelligent should be in school, or at least book-based school. I'd also like to hear more about why she thinks the power lies amongst the masses. That's very democratic thinking, but is it reflected in real life?
But I don't want to come across as debating here, she's just piqued my interested and I must admit got me thinking on the subject too. What bliss it must be to have such a smart, engaged teenager for a student!
I'm a bit perplexed about the recommendation of The Gods Must Be Crazy. The movie I know by that name is a very old South African farce. Is there a different one also?
Great points, all. Sarah...I asked her your questions, and she was excited to get into the debate. Her answer was simple..."I don't think anyone should be in public school; it's a failed design!"
I think, though, we have our next topic of discussion...
Wow -- sounds great. No matter where she goes with this topic, there is so much to learn about how sociology works, and developing and poking holes in a hypothesis.
Now if it were me, I would want to look back and see if there is something like "cool" in a very different place and time. E.g., in the Little House books. How does the town vs. country rivalry compare to modern "coolness." In Austen novels, some characters are clearly "in" while other are "out" -- how is that different and the same as modern "cool"? That kind of comparison could help her refine her ideas.
Of course literature is not history, but it can provide a useful window into social attitudes, nonetheless.
I respectfully disagree with Shaun about literature not being history - I treat it in my one room schoolhouse as an original source of real history. Often it can say more about what life was really like, about the perceptions of people really living then, and about when the rules were broken.
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