(All because I shouldn’t be using terms which can be potentially offensive! And – Thanks, Wikipedia, for all the alternative terms!)
You’ve probably read this. (Hint: How the “Eclipse at 11 o’clock” memo gets lost in transmission.) How often does one encounter such situations in real life? I believe, very often, but in a very different and frustrating manner. It’s not fun when you have to bear the brunt of that in a professional setting.
First, a bit of clarification. The funny story talks about a very short-term situation, where the information is literally lost due to inappropriate translation or choice of words. But what I am alluding to is a much more subtle, longer term loss of information due to incomplete passing on of experience and context. Exactly the kind that happens with kids where they are adamant on what a word would mean ‘because the teacher said so!‘ The teacher never said so – but kids will be kids. The body grows up, but the mind refuses refusing being a kid. It happens because we refuse to think, or question. To be fair, it is also the teacher’s fault. Especially if the teacher is someone awe-inspiring, it is her responsibility to take that extra step and make the student aware that this should not come in the way of the student’s critical thinking abilities, especially if the student is prone to being blinded by the perceived seniority/experience/personality of the teacher.
Since we are already so deep into clarification land, I will clarify further. The teacher need not be your classroom kind. It could be your mentor. Or a book author. Or someone whose blogs and articles you follow regularly, and try to learn from.
So, what is the problem we are talking about? It’s about my perception of the kind of people I encounter regularly in my life. Professional and otherwise. I could be entirely off-mark in gauging the generality here. But I’ve seen that people have a very strong opinion on topics they seem to have acquired knowledge on from others – often in a way that the originator did not probably intend.
Let’s have a slight change in terminology here. Allow me to call such teachers as pioneers. They are the originators of some stream of thought, or a field. Or someone very influential. They did not become pioneers overnight. They learnt, questioned, experimented, succeeded and failed in turn, and then came up with their own (may I say, pragmatic?) views, idioms and ways. They have – in their own minds – a vast body of experience and context. That gives them the authority and influence.
Then, here they come – the kids. They listen, and absorb – the words. But words are a thousand times less effective than pictures. Which are a further zillion times less effective that the abstract pictures that the pioneers have in their minds. That is where the kids’ abilities in critical and independent thinking, coupled with their experience comes into focus. If those aspects are lacking, you have a breed of ‘know-all-heard-all-from-the-master’ people who just can’t take anything which goes against their perception of what they read/heard from the pioneers. Experience and skills lose, because these kids invade all places with their impressive parroting of what the pioneers wrote and said – sadly, not what they meant.
This post is a rant against that state of affairs. And an appeal to the kids in all of us to grow up!
PS: Yes, I know that the term ‘kid’ can be used both ways – to show the inquisitiveness of children, or to show adults in a bad light by calling them kids. But I’d like to ignore that in this post 
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