Can I go back to eighth grade?

What is true ignorance? To know you're ignorant (and make no attempt to rectify your situation) or to not know you're ignorant?

Today I learned that the 12 or 13-year-old boy I tutor is studying convection currents in the mantle (the simplified version). I'm learning the same exact thing he is, but my textbook is much more technical and there are less (straightforward) illustrations. Turns out, to understand the cycle of convection currents in the mantle all you need to understand is how soup is cooked.

As you cook the soup, the bottom part of the soup becomes warmer than the top half of the soup, naturally (it's closer to the heat source). This bottom part becomes less dense because its particles are moving faster and thus, spreading. Now, the top part includes the surface of the soup, and up there, it's cooler than the bottom part because it isn't as close to the heat source.

And what happens when something is colder? Particles move more slowly and they "congregate," therefore, the soup at the top becomes denser. So, because the top part is heavier than the bottom part the top part will sink and the bottom part will rise, beginning the cycle of convection. Apparently, the same thing happens below the crust in the mantle. Only, it's not soup, it's molten rock.

The tutor becomes the tutee. ( it is tutee, not tutoree, I checked).

From Socrates to Plato

Ha! I should make a separate blog called "Pro-procrastination," or something along those lines..

Now, yes, yes, I know I said I would make this a daily blog (at least that's what I told myself), but being a college student hardly allows you to spend at least 15 minutes a day brainstorming about how ignorant you really are. I've got an entire life ahead of me to worry about that and, if I ever do have kids, I have their ignorance-plagued lives to worry about as well. I could pledge to write at least once a week, but then I'll write a post about how you really can't measure a week in layman's terms and how a week is really an illusion and like the Creation story, can be millions and millions of years instead of 7 days x 24 hours. Justification, my friends, is a weapon, like ignorance is a crime, although...justification doesn't kill ignorance, it makes it worse. (I know, there's no logic to it..but it's logical in my head and that's all that really matters.)

I hate to refer to the same class in consecutive posts but this class I'm taking and this professor who's giving the class are...incredible. I can't get enough of both.

What I plan to do is transcribe my crappy, eco-friendly notebook's notes into my new Moleskine notebook, because after taking a modern art history course in Paris that I absolutely loved I realized that there are certain lessons that should last forever. Buying Moleskine notebooks for these classes semi-guarantees this. God, I sound like a commercial.

Anywho, there's a story, or really allegory, that is simply brilliant: Plato's allegory of the cave, commonly known as the Myth of the Cave. Besides it being a multifaceted approach to the human condition, it works with the theme of my blog.

To understand the allegory one must be capable of using their imagination, or so my professor said.

So imagine you're in a cave. There's a wall in front of you and a wall behind you. You are chained (I'm guessing to the ceiling)--hands, legs, head, they're all chained. Behind you is a fire burning and in between the fire and you there's a walkway. People, whom you are not aware of and can't see, are walking through this walkway carrying "artifacts," or different objects, on their heads (you don't know this). You can only see what's in front of you, and because of the fire, these objects become shadows. As for sounds, the noise the people make echoes off the walls...it is a cave after all.

Imagine this is the definition of your existence--you know nothing else than what resides in the cave.

To a person outside this will seem bizarre, funny, abnormal, unorthodox. But not to you. This has been your life.

Actually, this is how your life—how my life—works. The people we can’t see, they are our parents, our teachers, our friends. Anybody who has ever had a say in our lives. These shadows, they are the “realities” or ideas we have been taught—we know nothing else. Our chains? They don’t weigh on us because we can’t perceive that weight, we just perceive comfort. Comfort induced by not knowing of anything and anybody else.

But what if we are suddenly dragged outside the cave to discover another reality?

I’ll let your imagination do the rest. Think.

The Socratic Method

Today was my second day of class. I had planned on starting this blog yesterday, but like Miss Scarlett O'hara repeatedly said in her Southern belle accent, I said to myself "I'll think about that tomorrow." (No accent, nor a corset.) Today is now that tomorrow, and like procrastination, ignorance can be outright devastating to an individual, particularly as time goes by and nothing gets done and nothing is learned and history repeats itself.

Ignorance is therefore humanity's greatest crime.

The dictionary is my best friend in times of doubt (What's that word that Ayn Rand keeps using...oh yes.) Well, my computer's dictionary defines ignorance as "lack of knowledge or information." The succinct definition is accurate, however it feels as though something may be missing. I would add that to be ignorant is to maintain a certain level of misinformation, again, sometimes without knowledge of this non-petty crime and sometimes willingly.

I guess ignorance is tailored to the individual, because all of us ARE ignorant of one thing or another. Certainly, there are different degrees of ignorance as well as the possibility that some people choose to be ignorant while others are born ignorant and will die ignorant because of the life they were born into. Ignorance is (like) a lifestyle...

So going back to class today, one professor didn't sugarcoat it. He announced to his class of 100ish students that if he ever called on a student to answer a question about the readings due for that day and that student didn't know the answer, he would kick them out without hesitation. I don't blame him. When he asked the class the definition of the Socratic method only one young man was able to meet his expectations of a decent answer. Most of those who raised there hands to impress their neighbors or to repress a fear of public speaking realized instantly that they, in fact, had no idea why they had raised their hands in the first place. I kept mine down, not too proudly.

So, what is the Socratic method? well...you can find the answer all over the web. You'll probably start with Wikipedia, like I did and move on to the next links provided by Google.

What I learned is that the socratic method is a way of reassessing what you think you know. It's asking "why?" And, the answer simply cannot be "because yes." Socrates proposed a manner of thinking that led to questioning one's ability to learn and to answer questions that have no one right answer. It's too easy nowadays to memorize something without truly understanding it...with multiple choice and the proliferation of students copying, "why?" is akin to "who cares." Well, you should care because the more you understand something, the smaller the chances are you'll forget it. So, because I once pledged to cure the disease of ignorance ( I kid you not, it has been on my resolutions list for years), I will pledge to rid myself of my own ignorance, blog post by blog post.

How, you ask? Well, every day I will post what I learned in my classes, or from conversations with friends and family, or just anything that makes me less and less ignorant. Today, the Socratic method, tomorrow...I'll think about that tomorrow.