Can’t find the thread

[Omegstrat6]

It was you I was thinking of 55. There’s nothing wrong with having a creative approach to remembering things. The trouble with school curriculums is that they have a rigid path. Most exams are just memory tests. People with a photographic memory are then top of the class. If you had to just think on your feet and work something out on your own a lot of those with photographic memories might then be seen to be clueless. Intelligence is measured in many ways.

The number of very successful people (rather interestingly, mostly those with their forte in the arts) who did not do well in the "traditional" English education system is rather impressive. Not just them though, many kids who would today be classed as being on the autistic spectrum,with aspergers syndrome for example, would have been seen as being "difficult" or "rude" back in the day with some even ending up in borstals-just because they had sensory issues and processed the world differently. Certainly didn't/doesn't make them "thick". Intelligence does indeed come in many forms and it's quite legitimate to argue that many of human-kind's advances were made by those with the capacity to "think outside" the traditional "box".

[boingy]

The number of very successful people (rather interestingly, mostly those with their forte in the arts) who did not do well in the "traditional" English education system is rather impressive. Not just them though, many kids who would today be classed as being on the autistic spectrum,with aspergers syndrome for example, would have been seen as being "difficult" or "rude" back in the day with some even ending up in borstals-just because they had sensory issues and processed the world differently. Certainly didn't/doesn't make them "thick". Intelligence does indeed come in many forms and it's quite legitimate to argue that many of human-kind's advances were made by those with the capacity to "think outside" the traditional "box".

Absolutely. My mate who has two Autistic children talks to me about some of the deep conversations he has with his ****age son who has lots of social problems but intellectually is as sharp as a razor. I think dealing with mental health which I have done since birth has shown me some amazing people who as you say would have been simply written off as problematic in the usual school system. I prefer their company, you always learn something. As I have CPTSD I’m always aware of the unseen that makes us who we are.

[Omegstrat6]

The Indians were always the bad guy's in the early westerns, then from the seventies they were the good guys and the whites were the bad guy's. It's not as red and white as that. Read Empire of the Summer Moon or A Fate Worse Than Death or A Slave of the Sioux. The atrocities carried out by the Indians made me hate them just reading it. Babies, men and young children were killed on the spot, usually in a cruel way in front of the mother's and wives. The women were repeatedly raped then either killed or sent to a camp where they became slaves and were beaten by the Indian women. Some young boys were assimilated into the tribe to become warriors.
You can see why the early settlers hated them and wanted to exterminate the them all.
But the Indians were warrior men who were defending their homeland and they treated the enemies of the tribe, other Indians the same.
I have also read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and The Earth is Weeping that gives the native American view.
Always best to see two sides, that was what my parents taught me.

With strongly rumoured Native American blood somewhere in my ancestry, I was always interested in these American "indians" and have read most of the books you mentioned myself. Certainly the brutality of some tribes would have ensured the hatred of white settlers (even though conflict between rival tribes could be equally violent) but, as you rightly say, there are two sides to every story and whilst Dee Brown's book, like Costner's Dances with Wolves movie, might be criticised for being overly biased or romanticised, they still show the story from the Indians' perspective and their treatment by the US government has been mostly nothing but shameful.

Totally agree with you that it's best to seek out as much information as possible and be prepared to challenge some accepted historical "truths" as history-as Churchill said-is written by the victors and certain elements are frequently altered, ignored or left out, whether consciously or otherwise. Find out as much as you can first then make your own mind up about things. May disagree with you over Zelensky and Putin 😀, but certainly agree with you on this!