Comment author:MatthewB
20 March 2010 03:06:41PM
8 points
[-]
I am not sure what to make of this, because I do think that many times the "When you get to be my age..." argument is often used to shut down an opponent. But... I also think that at times it has merit.
For instance, I don't know of a single one of the fellow art students who could understand the argument for needing to do 500 tracings a week when the instructor told us "At the end of the semester, you will understand why you needed to do them. At least, those of you who do them will understand why"
And, he was right, yet most of us were angry that he could have communicated this more effectively had he tried. However, if he had done a better job of telling us why we needed to do 500 tracings a week, it is likely that fewer of us would have done the 500 tracings a week (also supported by past evidence of when he used to give a fuller explanation to his classes. We could see in both the grades and the classes' work that they had not put in their time)... So, in that case, there was a motivational factor to have us gain the experience on our own, instead of trying to gain it through proxy.
BTW, the reason that we did 500 tracings a week was much like the whole Karate Kid "Wax On", "Wax Off" thing... So that our bodies would learn the motions of drawing, leaving our brains free to think about composition or morphology of the image on which we were working. Except that it was long before the movie ever came out.
Comment author:Dee
25 March 2010 12:07:47PM
3 points
[-]
I would love to get some examples on how "life experience" in general is necessary for an informed and rational opinion on a subject. The examples in these comments seem to relate to not "life experience" but specific experience (i.e. doing tracings, playing chess, etc.) Yet people seem to think that "life experience" in general adds "something" and that further conversation on the subject cannot substitute for it.
As someone whose peer group is generally much older than me, I can say from comparing myself to others that "life experience" doesn't add to your knowlege or intelligence or mental development, past a certain age. What it does add is context. As you get older, your context shifts--certain things that you thought were important no longer are important and certain things become more important. I think it's explaining this context shift that is so difficult (but not impossible!)
For instance, my younger self had serious worries about her relationship that now seem trivial. This is because I've learned that communication and trust are much more important to having a healthy relationship than physically being close to someone. And this context shift comes from simply life experiences in dealing with people.
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I am not sure what to make of this, because I do think that many times the "When you get to be my age..." argument is often used to shut down an opponent. But... I also think that at times it has merit.
For instance, I don't know of a single one of the fellow art students who could understand the argument for needing to do 500 tracings a week when the instructor told us "At the end of the semester, you will understand why you needed to do them. At least, those of you who do them will understand why"
And, he was right, yet most of us were angry that he could have communicated this more effectively had he tried. However, if he had done a better job of telling us why we needed to do 500 tracings a week, it is likely that fewer of us would have done the 500 tracings a week (also supported by past evidence of when he used to give a fuller explanation to his classes. We could see in both the grades and the classes' work that they had not put in their time)... So, in that case, there was a motivational factor to have us gain the experience on our own, instead of trying to gain it through proxy.
BTW, the reason that we did 500 tracings a week was much like the whole Karate Kid "Wax On", "Wax Off" thing... So that our bodies would learn the motions of drawing, leaving our brains free to think about composition or morphology of the image on which we were working. Except that it was long before the movie ever came out.
I would love to get some examples on how "life experience" in general is necessary for an informed and rational opinion on a subject. The examples in these comments seem to relate to not "life experience" but specific experience (i.e. doing tracings, playing chess, etc.) Yet people seem to think that "life experience" in general adds "something" and that further conversation on the subject cannot substitute for it.
As someone whose peer group is generally much older than me, I can say from comparing myself to others that "life experience" doesn't add to your knowlege or intelligence or mental development, past a certain age. What it does add is context. As you get older, your context shifts--certain things that you thought were important no longer are important and certain things become more important. I think it's explaining this context shift that is so difficult (but not impossible!)
For instance, my younger self had serious worries about her relationship that now seem trivial. This is because I've learned that communication and trust are much more important to having a healthy relationship than physically being close to someone. And this context shift comes from simply life experiences in dealing with people.