<story><title>Helen Keller on her life before self-consciousness (1908)</title><url>http://scentofdawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/before-soul-dawn-helen-keller-on-her.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dingnuts</author><text>I feel like this story of a memory reimagined by an adult from the perspective of himself as a very precocious three year old sounds more like projection of the OP&amp;#x27;s current relationship with their father back onto a childhood memory mixed with arrogance and a desire to brag about how smart they are online for attention.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s downright unbelievable to me that anyone would have this detailed of a memory of when they were three, or that a three year old could detect subtle and repressed jealousy for intelligence -- if such an emotion was expressed and not imagined by the child in the first place -- and additionally the emotion allegedly detected is extremely advanced for a toddler to understand.&lt;p&gt;Unless the OP is thirteen. That would explain the arrogance and being able to remember being three so well.</text></item><item><author>lukan</author><text>&amp;quot;With a fear in his eyes that I only later discovered came from the fact that his own sense of safety depended on being the smartest person in the room, he said, &amp;quot;You&amp;#x27;re only 3. I don&amp;#x27;t think you&amp;#x27;re supposed to know how to do that yet.&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I feel like that episode describes most of common education. In theory outstanding excellence is wanted, in reality often not so much, as this causes problems. Better teach them how to stay in line.</text></item><item><author>smeej</author><text>This makes me wonder about what turned out to be a pivotal moment in my early life. It was the day I first realized other people have their own minds, and that I could predict with some degree of accuracy what was in them.&lt;p&gt;My dad wrote the numbers 1 through 4 on a piece of paper, then asked me to pick one, but not tell him which I&amp;#x27;d chosen. Once I had it, he said, &amp;quot;You picked 3, didn&amp;#x27;t you?&amp;quot; I was dumbfounded. &amp;quot;How did you do that??&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Most people don&amp;#x27;t like to be out on the edges. It makes them uncomfortable. So they don&amp;#x27;t pick 1 or 4. And most people, like you, are right-handed, so they pick 3 over 2.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;OK, OK, do it again.&amp;quot; (This was the moment a flash of magic happened in my head.)&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;You picked 1 this time, didn&amp;#x27;t you?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;No, I picked 3 again because I knew you would think I would pick 1 this time.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;With a fear in his eyes that I only later discovered came from the fact that his own sense of safety depended on being the smartest person in the room, he said, &amp;quot;You&amp;#x27;re only 3. I don&amp;#x27;t think you&amp;#x27;re supposed to know how to do that yet.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;But here&amp;#x27;s the other thing--I &lt;i&gt;was&lt;/i&gt; literate when I was 3. Nobody really knows how I picked it up, but one day I told my mom it was my turn to read the stories, and I&amp;#x27;ve been reading fluently ever since. I&amp;#x27;ve been told I read differently than most people even now (blocks of text rather than individual letters or words), but I was definitely reading.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve never associated the two events before, nor that maybe I was only able to do one because of the other, but it makes sense of the fact that other kids didn&amp;#x27;t really start to seem reasonable or thoughtful until 1st or 2nd grade. They lived in these imaginary worlds where things didn&amp;#x27;t have to make sense. It seemed like a lot of fun, but I had trouble joining them there. I always assumed both skills just correlated with age, not that one might facilitate the other.&lt;p&gt;My story obviously doesn&amp;#x27;t prove anything, but you&amp;#x27;ve given me an interesting thing to think about today!</text></item><item><author>kqr</author><text>James Gleick in &lt;i&gt;The Information&lt;/i&gt; also describes cases of the effect of traditional literacy on complexity&amp;#x2F;abstraction of thought.&lt;p&gt;He claims that literacy is nearly a prerequisite for things like zeroth-order logical reasoning and understanding of abstract shapes. Two examples he gives:&lt;p&gt;- Some illiterate people are told that all bears in the north are white, that Greenland is a country in the north, then they are asked what colours bears in Greenland have. They answer, &amp;quot;Different regions have differently coloured bears. I haven&amp;#x27;t been to Greenland. But I have seen a brown bear.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I would have said, &amp;quot;Based on the information you gave me, I would guess white.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;- When shown a rectangle and asked what shape it is some illiterate answer things like &amp;quot;a door&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;a playing card&amp;quot; but struggle to find things doors and playing cards have in common.&lt;p&gt;I go to the abstract shapes immediately when I&amp;#x27;m shown drawings by my son. It&amp;#x27;s almost at a point where it feels like my logical&amp;#x2F;abstract reasoning stands in the way of creativity.&lt;p&gt;----&lt;p&gt;But I don&amp;#x27;t know how much this is personality (I happen to have a knack for logical&amp;#x2F;abstract reasoning and I happened to learn to read when I was very young) and how much is an effect of reading. After all, anthropologists are great at the concrete rather than abstract, but maybe they get lots of training in it. I&amp;#x27;ve also heard the Japanese are better at it.&lt;p&gt;TFA clearly postulates it has more to do with the kind of vocabulary, or maybe it&amp;#x27;s on an increasing scale with more language.</text></item><item><author>atum47</author><text>This reminded me of a story my professor once told us back in college. I was studying sign language and she is deaf. She told us growing up in the old days they didn&amp;#x27;t had specialized schools for deaf people (since they could read?!) so she attended regular school and was not doing ok. She struggled a lot until she finally got the attention that she needed from a teacher who was able to instruct her in sign language (which believe you or not is Brazil&amp;#x27;s second official language). Before that she told us she was not able to have complex thoughts. She didn&amp;#x27;t know her father had a name, for instance. She thought his &amp;quot;name&amp;quot; was daddy. She is a brilliant woman and I&amp;#x27;m glad I attended her class and also, that she was able to find someone who helped her, growing up.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>smeej</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s central to the story that it was highly unusual. My dad couldn&amp;#x27;t believe I could do that, so it doesn&amp;#x27;t surprise me that you can&amp;#x27;t either. Many children aren&amp;#x27;t speaking clearly at 3, much less reasoning about what is likely to be in another person&amp;#x27;s mind. I do remember he reacted by growing cold, which surprised me because I thought it was a great cool new thing I had discovered. But as I said, I didn&amp;#x27;t interpret at the time. I only realized why he reacted so differently from how adult me would react to a 3-year-old today because I know so much more about him now.&lt;p&gt;I was an unusual little kid--and a girl, not a boy, though that&amp;#x27;s not terribly relevant to the story. Not really sure what else to tell you. I don&amp;#x27;t think I progressed intellectually any &lt;i&gt;farther&lt;/i&gt; than most people do, but I did progress &lt;i&gt;faster,&lt;/i&gt; which was especially noticeable when I was young. I have the handwritten list my mom made of the 100 words I could use correctly by my first birthday. My earliest vivid memory is of my 2nd birthday party. For all I know, I may also have been very close to turning 4 at the time this story took place, but I know my being 3 contributed to his unease, and I know I was reading at 3. It&amp;#x27;s not a brag. Being an unusual little kid (honestly I usually just say &amp;quot;weird&amp;quot;) just added another perspective to the parent comment.</text></comment>
<story><title>Helen Keller on her life before self-consciousness (1908)</title><url>http://scentofdawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/before-soul-dawn-helen-keller-on-her.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dingnuts</author><text>I feel like this story of a memory reimagined by an adult from the perspective of himself as a very precocious three year old sounds more like projection of the OP&amp;#x27;s current relationship with their father back onto a childhood memory mixed with arrogance and a desire to brag about how smart they are online for attention.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s downright unbelievable to me that anyone would have this detailed of a memory of when they were three, or that a three year old could detect subtle and repressed jealousy for intelligence -- if such an emotion was expressed and not imagined by the child in the first place -- and additionally the emotion allegedly detected is extremely advanced for a toddler to understand.&lt;p&gt;Unless the OP is thirteen. That would explain the arrogance and being able to remember being three so well.</text></item><item><author>lukan</author><text>&amp;quot;With a fear in his eyes that I only later discovered came from the fact that his own sense of safety depended on being the smartest person in the room, he said, &amp;quot;You&amp;#x27;re only 3. I don&amp;#x27;t think you&amp;#x27;re supposed to know how to do that yet.&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I feel like that episode describes most of common education. In theory outstanding excellence is wanted, in reality often not so much, as this causes problems. Better teach them how to stay in line.</text></item><item><author>smeej</author><text>This makes me wonder about what turned out to be a pivotal moment in my early life. It was the day I first realized other people have their own minds, and that I could predict with some degree of accuracy what was in them.&lt;p&gt;My dad wrote the numbers 1 through 4 on a piece of paper, then asked me to pick one, but not tell him which I&amp;#x27;d chosen. Once I had it, he said, &amp;quot;You picked 3, didn&amp;#x27;t you?&amp;quot; I was dumbfounded. &amp;quot;How did you do that??&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Most people don&amp;#x27;t like to be out on the edges. It makes them uncomfortable. So they don&amp;#x27;t pick 1 or 4. And most people, like you, are right-handed, so they pick 3 over 2.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;OK, OK, do it again.&amp;quot; (This was the moment a flash of magic happened in my head.)&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;You picked 1 this time, didn&amp;#x27;t you?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;No, I picked 3 again because I knew you would think I would pick 1 this time.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;With a fear in his eyes that I only later discovered came from the fact that his own sense of safety depended on being the smartest person in the room, he said, &amp;quot;You&amp;#x27;re only 3. I don&amp;#x27;t think you&amp;#x27;re supposed to know how to do that yet.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;But here&amp;#x27;s the other thing--I &lt;i&gt;was&lt;/i&gt; literate when I was 3. Nobody really knows how I picked it up, but one day I told my mom it was my turn to read the stories, and I&amp;#x27;ve been reading fluently ever since. I&amp;#x27;ve been told I read differently than most people even now (blocks of text rather than individual letters or words), but I was definitely reading.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve never associated the two events before, nor that maybe I was only able to do one because of the other, but it makes sense of the fact that other kids didn&amp;#x27;t really start to seem reasonable or thoughtful until 1st or 2nd grade. They lived in these imaginary worlds where things didn&amp;#x27;t have to make sense. It seemed like a lot of fun, but I had trouble joining them there. I always assumed both skills just correlated with age, not that one might facilitate the other.&lt;p&gt;My story obviously doesn&amp;#x27;t prove anything, but you&amp;#x27;ve given me an interesting thing to think about today!</text></item><item><author>kqr</author><text>James Gleick in &lt;i&gt;The Information&lt;/i&gt; also describes cases of the effect of traditional literacy on complexity&amp;#x2F;abstraction of thought.&lt;p&gt;He claims that literacy is nearly a prerequisite for things like zeroth-order logical reasoning and understanding of abstract shapes. Two examples he gives:&lt;p&gt;- Some illiterate people are told that all bears in the north are white, that Greenland is a country in the north, then they are asked what colours bears in Greenland have. They answer, &amp;quot;Different regions have differently coloured bears. I haven&amp;#x27;t been to Greenland. But I have seen a brown bear.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I would have said, &amp;quot;Based on the information you gave me, I would guess white.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;- When shown a rectangle and asked what shape it is some illiterate answer things like &amp;quot;a door&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;a playing card&amp;quot; but struggle to find things doors and playing cards have in common.&lt;p&gt;I go to the abstract shapes immediately when I&amp;#x27;m shown drawings by my son. It&amp;#x27;s almost at a point where it feels like my logical&amp;#x2F;abstract reasoning stands in the way of creativity.&lt;p&gt;----&lt;p&gt;But I don&amp;#x27;t know how much this is personality (I happen to have a knack for logical&amp;#x2F;abstract reasoning and I happened to learn to read when I was very young) and how much is an effect of reading. After all, anthropologists are great at the concrete rather than abstract, but maybe they get lots of training in it. I&amp;#x27;ve also heard the Japanese are better at it.&lt;p&gt;TFA clearly postulates it has more to do with the kind of vocabulary, or maybe it&amp;#x27;s on an increasing scale with more language.</text></item><item><author>atum47</author><text>This reminded me of a story my professor once told us back in college. I was studying sign language and she is deaf. She told us growing up in the old days they didn&amp;#x27;t had specialized schools for deaf people (since they could read?!) so she attended regular school and was not doing ok. She struggled a lot until she finally got the attention that she needed from a teacher who was able to instruct her in sign language (which believe you or not is Brazil&amp;#x27;s second official language). Before that she told us she was not able to have complex thoughts. She didn&amp;#x27;t know her father had a name, for instance. She thought his &amp;quot;name&amp;quot; was daddy. She is a brilliant woman and I&amp;#x27;m glad I attended her class and also, that she was able to find someone who helped her, growing up.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lukan</author><text>&amp;quot;or that a three year old could detect subtle and repressed jealousy for intelligence&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;He did not claim that. He claimed he interpreted it later like this.&lt;p&gt;Apart from that, there might be projection, but I know that I have some very clear memories from being 3 as well. Now I obviously do not know, how far my memory matches reality. But I would not just dismiss the story. Many people are insecure about their intelligence. And when there is an actual intelligent beeing - the common reaction of the crowd is not cheering, when the smart person is so stupid to show he is smarter than the crowd.</text></comment>