[MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie]

Oh what a thread! There are so many thoughts bursting in my head all at once, if I could only type as fast as I thought, and then think faster as to develop those thoughts individually while I type them onto the screen.

But first let me say that I think this thread should be moved to the Books section. My reasons are that this is (or will become, I presume) an in depth discussion, and it does deal with Tolkien. But if you think otherwise, so be it.

I think that a lot of it has to do with freedom. Everyone enjoys their space, and that goes with thinking space. In school, you have certain boundaries as to your supposed to be learning, and some classes offer more freedom than others. However, there are no boundaries as to what you learn when reading Tolkien and at the Downs. You are completely free to learn what ever you choose.

School can be tedious. Some of it is not always learning, and I think that this is what takes away from education. Some of the 'learning' is actually just busy work, just forcing and drilling things into your mind simply by memory. The more you do it, the easier it is to remember, and by remembering it, you are rewarded with A's and sometimes B's simply for writing down what you remember. This is most common in math, I think, and history too. It is not by this method teachers should be taching students for this is not really teaching as those who do not understand it will very soon forget it. They should teach students to understand what it means and how to use it. That forms strong bonds, and it sticks with them easier, and it becomes a lot more useful. I know that when I learning an equation or formula, and actually understood it, I felt smart and good about it, and it took a real long time before I forgot it, and that's if I have forgotten it yet.

Also, a lot has to do with motivation. If you are not motivated to learn, and this can be for many reasons (subject, learning environment, teacher, etc.), you're not really going to learn. in school a lot of the times, students become bored and distracted easily. We all know that when that happens, everything goes in one ear and out the other, and that's if it even enters our mind. Pretty soon classes like those can become very repetetive and eventually, one can come to dread it because it is so boring. Then, you really don't learn anything. Teacher's lessons day-by-day are supposed to all fit in to each other and each day sets the stage for the next. The more we pay attention, the better we understand it, the more we learn. The less we pay attention, the less things make sense, the less we learn.

And in school, we learn the most when we want to learn. Topics that keep us intereseted have the best effects on us, but that's not all classes (for most people anyways) and most classes are mandatory. We don't have to worry about that outside of school because we choose what we want to learn, and usually, it's something that we want and like.

Then here at the Downs and in Tolkien's works, everything is laid back. You choose to learn what you will and at your own pace. You are your own teacher when reading. Your mind is is the teacher, and also the student. You learn from what you think, and what you can do with those thoughts. At the Downs, we are each other's teachers, and students likewise. This place is like a huge school, where everyone goes bustling about to another classroom maybe in the Books section, or to something more fun like the quiz section. But here, you choose when, and if you go. You are not forced to do anything. Therefore I seem to learn a lot, and when I come here, I usually do it to learn, and when I can't learn anymore more than I want to for that moment, I teach instead. I think everyone has done both, whether we realize it or not.

The question from the title of this thread is: Do you feel you learn more from Tolkien and the Downs than School?

Well, I cannot further say until you define to me what you mean by "more". More can mean a lot of things in a question like this. It can mean 'more beneficial', more in a quantitative sense, more in an eduational sense, etc. I think that you meant for "more" to be in general, but hopefully now you see that I cannot give a general answer to that question.

That's all for now.

EDIT: Not only that, it's really impossible to get a definate answer on this since it veries from person to person, but I think you already realized that.

[ April 09, 2003: Message edited by: MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie ]