What did you learn from reading fiction that you hadn't expected going in?

[Joebill]

Yeah, Darwin never said we descended from apes. Yet there are people who claim he did.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Ea

beppe, I think that is very sound suggestions for providing the ideal environment for the serious social researcher. Especially the facilities for daily exercise, as well as relaxation, to help curb the fatigue one must necessarily suffer to aid the advance of science.

Ok, advancement of science as first goal and priority. But after the sun sets we can go around and have a bit of fun I am sure?

Yes, I mean .. duty and all that, but we should never forget that life could be a dream ...

Spoiler:

Hey nonny ding dong, alang alang alang
Boom ba-doh, ba-doo ba-doodle-ay

Oh, life could be a dream (sh-boom)
If I could take you up in paradise up above (sh-boom)
If you would tell me I'm the only one that you love
Life could be a dream, sweetheart
(Hello, hello again, sh-boom and hopin' we'll meet again)

Oh, life could be a dream (sh-boom)
If only all my precious plans would come true (sh-boom)
If you would let me spend my whole life lovin' you
Life could be a dream, sweetheart

Now every time I look at you
Something is on my mind (dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-duh)
If you do what I want you to
Baby, we'd be so fine!

Oh, life could be a dream (sh-boom)
If I could take you up in paradise up above (sh-boom)
If you would tell me I'm the only one that you love
Life could be a dream, sweetheart

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Ea

I've never seen this specific reasoning for all-girls' schools before. I do wonder at what age girls start to think about future husbands - and wonder about the society that encourage such thinking at such a supposedly early age...

Define "early age". The notion certainly occurs to girls in high school, who are old enough to date, and old enough to have kids. They may not plan to act on it, but they'll be thinking about it. It will bear more heavily later. An ex-girlfriend described the girls's college she went to as a glorified finishing school, teaching cocktail conversation, with the implicit assumption that their career path was to become wives and mothers, and were learning the skills needed to snag a promising future doctor/lawyer/broker/etc. from the corresponding well rated boy's school.

A reason for gender segregation is schools that I have seen before is that boys and girls don't develop intellectually at the same rate and that current school curriculums - especially in mathematics - favour boys (in the early years boys apparently have a slightly slower learning rate.

That's another and better reason. One area where girls have historically lagged is mathematics. There's been a lot of debate over here about whether boys are simply inherently better due to slightly different brain wiring, or whether it's more a cultural issue based in an underlying attitude that girls aren't supposed to be good at math, and the girls pick up on the attitude and internalize it. It's another reason to school them separately from boys.
______
Dennis

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Define "early age". The notion certainly occurs to girls in high school, who are old enough to date, and old enough to have kids. They may not plan to act on it, but they'll be thinking about it. It will bear more heavily later. An ex-girlfriend described the girls's college she went to as a glorified finishing school, teaching cocktail conversation, with the implicit assumption that their career path was to become wives and mothers, and were learning the skills needed to snag a promising future doctor/lawyer/broker/etc. from the corresponding well rated boy's school.


*snip.*
______
Dennis

and that probably wasn't much past the early 60s (if even that late) was it?

[Freeshadow]

@Ea: I have no experience to actually judge scandinavian educational systems. What I meant is to show that this is the common opinion as far as I ve noticed.

@Joebill: I'd never say it was a descent. Judging by the majority of our species I have had "pleasure" to meet, I rather suspect, the apes have kicked the a*holes of their clans down the trees and never let them climb up again.

@beppe: it's a pleasure to read this all, even as a bystander and it spares me a mental sanity dice roll, knowing that there are still people behaving this way.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

and that probably wasn't much past the early 60s (if even that late) was it?

No, you've pegged the time period. Underlying changes in the society and the economy have squelched that assumption, and good riddance.
______
Dennis

[bjones6416]

Originally Posted by beppe

I hope that condition is not so critical. Like meaning that when I started reading i did not know what would leave meaningful traces in me.

If I follow that hunch that I do not know nothing and that my path has been a series of fortuitous turns (opinion shared by a number of people that had and have dealing with me), than knowing little means that i learned little. Easy out.

But if I look more closely, I get the impression that all that I know of the important things of life I learned by reading fiction. I mean narrative in a wide sense.

So, starting with the most important ones, I learned about the fine art of making and eating sandwiches by the stories of Edward Delaney by Lawrence Sanders. Where else one can learn the distinction between dry and wet sandwiches to be eaten over the sink, or to unfold a news paper on the kitchen table to efficiently dispose of the mess?

To keep dry martini's already mixed in the freezer I learned it by Chandler.

What does it mean to be physically brave I learned it by a war novel. There was this officer totally fearless. And his collegue explained that one would have taken everyone to death. The true courage, he said, was not to not have fear - that was insane - but to master it. This stayed with me and helped me many times to overcome difficult or unpleasant situations.

Than there is love. From Daddy Long-Legs by Jean Webster, I learned that longing is good to appreciate an happy ending. And the movie accompanied the first of such longings.

The Little prince enters as a big factor in my sentimental education. Some of its teaching became obvious quite recently. The fox loves the blond hair of the little prince, associated to waves of wind in a ripe wheat field. When I saw the blonde head of the girl in the wind, it took very little else to shatter my heart and to be hit by all the longing that so many readings had loaded my heart with. A veritable time bomb. I will have to reread the Little Prince and not only once more to study the happy endings.

This is a lovely post! Thank you for sharing...

[Ea]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Define "early age". The notion certainly occurs to girls in high school, who are old enough to date, and old enough to have kids. They may not plan to act on it, but they'll be thinking about it. It will bear more heavily later. An ex-girlfriend described the girls's college she went to as a glorified finishing school, teaching cocktail conversation, with the implicit assumption that their career path was to become wives and mothers, and were learning the skills needed to snag a promising future doctor/lawyer/broker/etc. from the corresponding well rated boy's school.


That's another and better reason. One area where girls have historically lagged is mathematics. There's been a lot of debate over here about whether boys are simply inherently better due to slightly different brain wiring, or whether it's more a cultural issue based in an underlying attitude that girls aren't supposed to be good at math, and the girls pick up on the attitude and internalize it. It's another reason to school them separately from boys.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

No, you've pegged the time period. Underlying changes in the society and the economy have squelched that assumption, and good riddance.

I answered your post with the assumption that you were talking of girls-only school of today, not of 40 years ago or earlier. Which is why I replied as I did. Your answer here confuses me; were you talking about girls-only school acting as "finishing schools" today or then? Because if you weren't talking about schools today, I would have to write you a new reply.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by beppe

Ok, advancement of science as first goal and priority. But after the sun sets we can go around and have a bit of fun I am sure?

Yes, I mean .. duty and all that, but we should never forget that life could be a dream ...

The advancement of science is always important - and gives one an objective to work towards.

Thanks for the song, oh dreaming one

[Joebill]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

@Ea: I have no experience to actually judge scandinavian educational systems. What I meant is to show that this is the common opinion as far as I ve noticed.

@Joebill: I'd never say it was a descent. Judging by the majority of our species I have had "pleasure" to meet, I rather suspect, the apes have kicked the a*holes of their clans down the trees and never let them climb up again.

@beppe: it's a pleasure to read this all, even as a bystander and it spares me a mental sanity dice roll, knowing that there are still people behaving this way.

My statement wasn't aimed at anyone here. I've been reading a book titled 'Idiot America' by Charles Pierce.

[Freeshadow]

and my statement was only a cynical comment about our species in general

[Joebill]

Okay.

[Falcao]

While reading the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, I learned about poet John Keats.

[Poppa1956]

I've learned:

1. It's pronounced “Jan,” as in “Jan and Dean,” not “Yahn” or “Juan” or “Consuela.”
2. Small towns in America are surreal and frightening places filled with all sorts of evil and festering dark secrets waiting to burst forth on the unsuspecting world. (ala “Killing Floor” and “Risen.”) I had always suspected this.