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Jeni Hankins's avatar

I am always grateful for your letters, Jeremy. Thank you.

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Jeremy Mathew's avatar

Thanks, Jeni!

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Sarah Bush's avatar

Really really great.

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James Hart's avatar

"I know from my experience in academia that things I wrote in papers that were dismissed as “anecdotal” were very real to me and important."

Boy oh boy could I rant about this! Very much appreciate how you laid this out.

To my mind, Academia, STEM, SAT scores, AP credits, etc., etc. get pushed down our throats starting at Kindergarten. Which, yes, great; they can lead to a certain kind of education with certain kinds of opportunities that can be very good for people. But one of the reasons we're so screwed up is that there's no curriculum for intuition, curiosity, presence and empathy—the very things whose absence makes STEM irrelevant.

Anecdotal evidence is how you get stories, which are the closest thing we have to a university of the soul. It's a crime to dismiss it.

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Jeremy Mathew's avatar

Seriously! The tacit knowledge fragment here came from something I've been reflecting on at work. I work with adult learners, most unfortunately don't feel like they already have valuable knowledge to offer. Everyone is educated, to some extent, by life! Especially in the school of hard knocks. I agree with you so much!!

Science is important, yes, but empirical evidence seems to be overvalued to the point where systems have to wait for a peer reviewed study to find out things people already know intuitively. Do you work in education too?

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James Hart's avatar

Not lately, although I have taught professionally in the past. I will say, though, that even my humanities program was entirely geared toward analysis, dissection and theory. So, for example, adult learners who have not received a formal education in the humanities often have a huge advantage because they never learned this habit. I'm a poetry guy, so I'd argue that writers like John Clare and Robert Burns had something special to offer precisely because they weren't formally educated. (Not that others like Byron or Wordsworth have a mark against them—just that variety is good.)

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CansaFis Foote's avatar

…what has made you real is a good prompt…i have some astral traveler refusing to give up space in my unconscious so at the moment i think my reality might hit 82%…looking up always increases a lottle levity, looking down sometimes the same…sensing all sense as a practice seems my best path to self permanence, but it doesn’t accounts for the senselessness or any senses i am unaware of…i do find that goaling towards the possible is just as deep as dreaming…imagination might be drugs…

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Jeremy Mathew's avatar

I appreciate how you said that. Looking up and down. Both equally important! I'm stuck in a space lately (all my life actually) where I get caught in either extreme.

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Jacqueline England🎨's avatar

That photo of the trash with a head peeping out🔥

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Jeremy Mathew's avatar

I know! I just had to order a print of it.

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Rosie Whinray's avatar

Mate, middle age is the Realest age yet, though I expect Old age will be even Realer

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