[Chris Hibner]

Whoa Nellie! This may have been your best post ever. Isn't life crazy? I think you're finding out that the more you learn, the more you realize how little you actually know. It's a weird thing.

Anyway, have you ever thought about getting a PhD in education and doing educational research? There have been a number of theories on learning, memory, forgetting, thought processes, etc., but as a whole, learning processes is still a fairly young science.

I really think the world needs someone to answer some of your questions, such as "how to ask the right questions?" or "how to learn to think?". I know people are trying to answer these questions and there are theories, but they are fairly underdeveloped and unproven. Can you imagine how much better our education system would be if we knew as much about the learning process as we do about piston IC engines? Don't get me wrong - the education system does a good job, especially if the students are motivated (i.e. the "principle of readiness" for those who have seen the standard theories), but it seems like it could be more efficient if we knew how to pinpoint exactly what triggers each jump in the learning process (i.e. what makes us go from rote learning to understanding, and then to application, correlation, etc. -- what IS the trigger?).

One other thing you brought up really struck a chord with me. That is: "just because people are different doesn’t mean they are wrong". The lack of this insight by the majority of people has caused the world more damage than probably anything else in history. When you grow up in a particular culture, certain aspects of that culture are ingrained in you - you begin to believe that the way you do things is just the natural way of doing it and anything else is wrong. You come to find out that other people who do the same thing very differently feel that their way is the natural way, and that your way is wrong. People must open their eyes to this and realize that cultural biases can be so ingrained that you don't realize that it's culture, and not nature. Once you gain this insight, the world is much less mysterious and people become just people with their culture (rather than weird people that do things all wrong).

Keep thinking and keep questioning - that is what will make the world a better place. If only more people would do that...