The Measure of Intelligence

Posted February 10, 2011 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Education / 3 Comments

In 1904, the French psychologist Alfred Binet created the Binet Scale which became the basis of what is now the IQ Test. Originally it was created to measure a child’s strengths and weakness so the teacher knew which areas would require special attention for each individual student. The Binet Scale become a revolutionary approach to the assessment of individual mental ability, but it was never designed to test someone’s intelligence. Binet himself cautioned against misuse of the Binet Scale and has been quoted in saying “the scale, properly speaking, does not permit the measure of intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured.” He also feared that the test would be used to condemn a child rather than assist their education.

The Binet Scale had a profound effect on educational development but they failed to listen to Alfred Binet’s warnings and as a result of Lewis M. Terman’s revisions to the Binet Scale (now known as the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence) we now has a standardised intelligence test. This IQ Test became a standard practise and a multimillion dollar business; even resulting in the American Academy for the Advancement of Science listing the IQ test among the twenty most significant scientific discoveries of the twentieth century along with nuclear fission, DNA, the transistor and flight (in 1989).

If the IQ test was meant to monitor a person’s intelligence I have some questions that need answering;

How are they defining intelligence?

The ability to do well in school?
The ability to read well and spell correctly
Or the ability to following an intelligent person?

When did a person’s intelligence become linear?

The problem I found is that standardised testing is trying to make everyone the same, when we should be using the test on the young for its original purpose. Maybe we should just scrap the whole thing. I’ve also think other tests like the SAT’s are been misused as well. Let me know your thoughts.

What Would You Read in an Introduction to Fiction Course?

Posted February 1, 2011 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Education, Literature / 16 Comments

Currently on the curriculum for the Ohio State University course, An Introduction to Fiction is Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. I’ve also heard of some other high schools and universities using it as an introduction to fiction or gothic fiction courses. At first I felt sorry for all the future English majors who will have to read this book. But I thought, instead of bad mouthing the book (which is so easy to do), I would take some time and think about what I would want to see in an introductory course of fiction.

I started by compiling a list of topics I would want to cover if I ever did a course about fiction. I narrowed it down to ten key topics when looking at fiction;

Plot
Characterisation
Dialogue
Point of view
Setting
Style
Narrative
Themes
Genres
Concepts/Issues

It was the last point that stood out to me more than any of the other topics. When looking at good fiction, I would want to look at the issues that drive the discussions about these books. With this I picked out five books that would explore moral, social, philosophical or intellectual issues. When picking the books, I also tried to pick different genres and writing styles that make for a great read.

So if I was to create an introduction to Fiction course, my reading list would include;

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I would love to know what you would pick for a reading list if you were to lead a similar course.

Guernica; Picasso's Masterpiece

Posted January 27, 2011 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Art / 8 Comments

In 1937 the Spain was at war; a civil war between the Republic Government and Francisco Franco’s Francoist army. Franco led a rebellion army to overturn the government and bring communism to the Spanish people. The Francoist army had the support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. On April 26, 1937, 24 planes bombed the Basque town of Guernica. The town held no military significants, the objective; to send a message.

This tragedy effected many people including Picasso, and with a commissioning by the Spanish Republican government, Picasso set to work on a mural which would become his most famous piece of work. The painting, Guernica, broke Picasso out of a creative drought and renewed a passion, but now he did not want to be known as an icon breaker. Now, he set to work to create an icon.

The painting was 11 x 25.6 feet reflects the devastating effect of the bombing. while early sketches showed images of hope and optimism, this faded and we are left with this powerful painting. We can pull a lot of meaning from this painting and many spend time analysing it. Like the ever-seeing eye; the focus of everyone’s gaze and could be a symbol of evil or the bombers, the light bulb in the eye symbolising the devastating effect of technology or maybe it’s there because the Spanish word for light bulb is “bombilla”, which makes an allusion to “bomb”. Some symbols in the painting may be easier to recognise, like the open palm of the dead soldier is a stigmata, a symbol of martyrdom. No matter what you see in the painting, it truly is a masterpiece that stirs up a lot of emotion.

I would love to hear what you see and think of the painting but I would like to leave you with a story I’ve heard about Picasso, the painting, during World War 2.

During the 1940’s Picasso’s studio on the rue des Grands-Augustins was often visited by German officers. On one of their raids a Gestapo officer found a postcard of “Guernica,” Picasso’s 1937 lament for the Basque town bombed by the Luftwaffe.

“Did you do this?” asked the German.

“No, you did!” replied Picasso. “Take it? Souvenir”

Picasso – The Icon Breaker

Posted January 21, 2011 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Art / 0 Comments

Pablo Picasso is known as the pioneer of the avant-garde art movement known as Cubism; a modern art (almost surrealist) style which involves objects being broken up, analysed, and re-assembled in an abstract form. Not only is he known for this art style, but he should also be remembered as an ‘Icon Breaker’. Picasso made it a mission to break from the traditional; not interested in pleasuring the viewer, but trying to get to the core of the person in the painting.

Traditionally, art often depicted a man on a horse, nudes and the classic portraits; but for Picasso, well, let’s look at some examples.

In 1906 Picasso painted “Boy Leading a Horse”. Most traditional paintings of a man with his horse depict a symbol of power and a man demanding respect; Picasso’s painting did the opposite.

The ever popular nude was another target for Picasso. In a nude the woman is a simple of grace and beauty, but the 1907’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” showed five nude female prostitutes from a brothel, each woman, in a disconcerting confrontational manner and none are conventionally feminine.

Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1910)

When it came to the traditional Portrait, Picasso often painted in the cubism style and painted how he saw his subject. As depicted in paintings like the 1910’s “Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler”.

So what changed for Picasso that turned him from the “Icon Breaker” into an “Icon Maker”?

Find out next week…

Is The Book Always Better Than The Movie?

Posted January 11, 2011 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 0 Comments

Book-into film-adaptations is a tricky subject. Sometimes it’s easier to take the hard line and say the book is always better than the movie, but this isn’t always the case. With some interesting choices for adaptations coming out this year (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, The Dark Tower & the upcoming TV series; Game of Thrones) as well as some classics redone (The Hobbit, Jane Eyre & The Three Musketeers), I thought that we should see if we can work out, what makes a good adaptation?

I don’t think it’s fair to say all books are better than the movie. There have been some great examples to prove this isn’t the case such as Bridget Jones Diary & High Fidelity. In fact, one of the first blockbuster movies was adapted from a very ordinary book (Jaws).

But it doesn’t stop there; sometimes great books do make great movies. These books normally have a strong narrative drive; The Road is a really dense novel, full of ideas, very exuberant prose and great language, yet it made a great movie, surprising many, because of the narrative.

A great adaptation also needs to capture the essence of the book; we want fidelity between the book and the film but there is a problem with this. If a filmmaker does a faithful adaptation to the book the people will say you lack imagination, but if you make a movie without perfect fidelity you run the risk of been chastised by the fans of the book.

One of the major problems with adaptations is the fact that as a novel there are all these different ways of expressing character but as a film writer there is only action. A novel can have thousands of ideas and perspectives but in a film it needs to be distilled into one central idea. There was a quote from someone who worked on the Harry Potter movies that really explained this; “We’re not trying to hit all the bases and reproduce all the favourite characters and the favourite scenes cos that, in itself, is not enough. The film has to have meaning. And you need to distill that and that’s your job as an adaptor.”

On a rare occasion there comes a movie that takes a creative spin on their adaptation and does it really well. From a modern retelling of Romeo + Juliet & the BBC series Sherlock to the ground-breaking Bladerunner which ignores the central theme of the book almost completely. Taking a completely different direction on a book is often risky but can have surprising results.

‘The book is better than the movie’ may not be a golden rule, (but I think there should be a rule that “You need to read the book before seeing the movie”) however, movie adaptations can successes or failures, and more often than not they do fail. On a side note, I think graphic novels adapt a lot better than a novel ever does, is this because it’s almost a screenplay already? I would love to know some examples of good and bad adaptations, as well as your opinions on the subject.

A Look Back at 2010

Posted January 7, 2011 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Writing / 0 Comments

With 2010 now behind us, I thought it was time to review some of my favourite posts and book of the year. I’ve been neglecting my blogging a little, as I’ve been focusing on my reading (ended up reading a total 87 books for the year). I’m hoping 2011 will be different; currently aiming for one post a week.

Blog Posts

10. Trying to Understand Existentialism

9. Twin Peaks and Dream Interpretations

8. Five Books That Changed My Life

7. René Magritte’s The Lovers

6. My Goals for Knowledge Lost

5. Poetic Shock

4. Evolution of the English Language

3. Education Vs. Passion

2. Did Pop Culture Destroy Literature?

1. Nec Spe, Nec Metu (Without Hope, Without Fear)

Favourite Books Read in 2010

10. Fatherland by Robert Harris

9. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

8. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder

7. Animal Farm by George Orwell

6. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

5. The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

4. Maus by Art Spiegelman

3. On Writing by Stephen King

2. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Education Vs. Passion

Posted December 18, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Education / 10 Comments

For the past year I’ve been receiving an education, but not in the conventional sense. I don’t believe education starts and ends in the classroom. It can be a never ending process and it really depends on the person’s willingness to learn new things. When I’m talking about education, I believe there are multiple ways to become educated and that’s why, if people are willing and open to learning new things, we will learn.

I’m only new to the possibility of learning new things; and if you have been following my blog for a while you would notice the evolution involved. I started with Culture, then there was literature, writing, art, philosophy and now I’m talking about education. I believe that when you discover your God-given talent and develop a passion for it, interesting things happen. I would have never expected to develop an interest in education but I think that came with developing an interest in learning and discovering passion.

Picasso famously said “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” The harsh truth of this statement is that we have lost the ability to try and be creative; we are taught from an early stage in life that failure is bad and we grow up always thinking that. Sir Ken Robinson said it best when he said; “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” Along time ago I read a book called Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success by John Maxwell, in which it discussed how failing is not a bad thing; it is how to move of from failure, ultimately failing moulds us into the people we are today.

I’ve only just started reading this fascinating book by Sir Ken Robinson called The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything; in which he talks about the importance of passion in life and how it can affect every aspect from job satisfaction, creativity and even education. But before reading the book I just wanted to write some of my views and I may talk more about this later.

Public Education (or from what I remember) is so standardised that it could almost be viewed as a conveyer belt in a manufacture line and we are just churning out the same information to every student and expecting the same results. I know I had this problem at school and I never really did well. When it came to go to university I just didn’t feel it was right for me then, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted.

Public Education Hierarchy doesn’t help the students; we shouldn’t be telling the kids that some subjects are more important than others. While it is important that some subjects are essential for every student we need to get out of the habit of making some subjects inferior to others. The hierarchy I believe is;

Math, Science and Languages
Humanities
Arts

Parents and Educators need to be careful not to step on any students’ dreams. There are no wrong answers when it comes to dreams and passion. Parents and teachers seem to be more concerned with what job the student will end up with; the ability to make lots of money shouldn’t be more important than job satisfaction. There is no reason a person should have their dreams squashed; we don’t know what the future would be like so we can’t predict how the students will thrive in that situation.

An education doesn’t begin and end in the classroom. A lot of people have been educated in unconventional ways; my education is self education at the moment; people learn in different ways so education needs to be adapted to the person.

Discovery of Natural Talent is not the sole role of the person. While they need to learn to look inwardly and get to know themselves, they also need to learn to try new things. The people around them can help by doing simple things like providing encouragement. How much happier in your job would you be if the boss could see what you’re passionate about and found something in that field that could be added to your job description? What about if a teacher discovered that you are doing really well in a certain subject and they encouraged you further into the study of this topic? Or if your parents could see your passion and they sent you to a school that does well in that field?

I could probably continue on about Education and finding that spark in life that makes you happy, but this was more of a chance to get some thoughts down before I study this topic further. I know not all schools are standardising education and I know education reform has been a big focus all around the world. I just wanted to express some aspects that I’ve noticed from education that may be squashing people’s ability to be creative or to find joy in life. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

My Goals for Knowledge Lost

Posted November 26, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Writing / 0 Comments

My wife and I decided to look at our goals in life and what we would like to achieve as a couple and individually in the next one to five years. Of course, my dream involve writing & my blog. It is obvious that I would need to put in a lot of work and study into achieving my goals and that’s fine, but I feel like I’ve come up with a plan to help build towards these goals.

Knowledge Lost has primarily been about my personal growth in Art, Culture, Philosophy and Literature. I feel that if I want to be able to able to get a job or do something related to these topics, I might want to learn how to teach people about them. As you may be aware there are four little windows across the top of my blog which have been used to display the most recent post in the four primary topics of my blog. What I’m planning to do is change that; I’m going to transform them into launching pads for a basic lesson in the four topics of my blog. This way I’m still learning and I’m also compiling an action plan for my future, just in case I ever get the opportunity. This also starts me building material for possible ebooks in the future.

This is going to be hard to do and will take a lot of work, but I would love to know if anyone has a wealth of knowledge in Art, Culture, Philosophy and Literature. I don’t want to have these turn in to personal opinions and would love to have someone I could ask for advice and bounce ideas off in regards to these issues. This will be a workin progress for me but will make a big change to me and my blog.

William S. Burroughs & Surrealist Writing Methods

Posted November 19, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature, Writing / 2 Comments

Post-modern author, William S. Burroughs is best known for his experimental writing style. He was a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major influence in popular culture as well as literature.

In 1959, he released Naked Lunch which he described as “Automatic writing gone horribly wrong”. Previously, I have posted about Automatism, but it is a process of writing where the writer tries to avoid conscious thoughts. Burroughs has said that Naked Lunch wasn’t a book he wanted to write, but he had no choice but write it: he couldn’t write anything else. When it came to using André Breton’s method of automatism; where the subconscious focuses on one image or phase, Burroughs found his subconscious was taken over by a hostile entity. The results speaks for its self, Naked Lunch is not only full of obscene language but completely weird.

William S. Burroughs moved to Paris in the 1960’s where he met a painter named Brion Gysin. The two of them are often credited for rediscovering an old surrealist method known as Cut-up. This technique is when you take a finished piece of text, cut it up and rearrange it for a completely new novel. Burroughs experimented with this technique, which resulted in The Nova Trilogy; also known as The Cut-up Trilogy. The first book in the trilogy, The Soft Machine, was the result of the two on a journey (with the aid of some recreational drugs) to find hidden meanings in Naked Lunch. Using the cut-up technique, Burroughs wanted to find the answer to the question that had been plaguing him; the question of control; why did he have no control over the writing of Naked Lunch? The Soft Machine was first published with 182 pages; though in the second edition Burroughs removed 82 pages, replacing them with another 82 pages & with the other 100 pages, he rearranged and restructured using further cut-ups.

William S. Burroughs will always be known for his Beat influences, political trenchancies, cultural influences, his satirical writing and hopefully his experimental use of surrealist writing methods.

Olympia Press; Controversy & Erotic Fiction

Posted November 16, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 4 Comments

It’s hard to imagine a life without a freedom to talk openly about sex. Before the sexual revolution things were completely different and there were two publishers that pushed the boundaries. In 1929 an English man named Jack Kahane formed Obelisk Press, based out of Paris. His goal was to publish books other publishers would not touch for fear of prosecution. Though Obelisk Press went bankrupt, it paved the way for dbs (dirty books) later known as Erotic Fiction. Obelisk Press published books like Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, DH Lawrance’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover & James Joyce’s Haveth Childers Everywhere (often considered a working progress of Finnegans Wake).

While Jack Kahane laid the ground work, it was his son Maurice Girodias, who pushed the envelope on censorship. In 1953 Maurice started Olympia Press, a rebranded Obelisk Press which came under fire straight away for Austryn Wainhouse’s English translations of Marquis de Sade’s Justine. In a move that put Olympia Press under a lot more fire, Maurice started offering good money for dbs, though most of these books were eventually banned they were able to make a small profit before being removed from the shelves. Obelisk Press were responsible for such books like Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, The Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs & The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy.

Though both publishers ended in bankruptcy, they did pave the way with controversy and erotic fiction in English literature. Apart from the controversy it start the ball rolling for other authors and took the risk in publishing book others wouldn’t. What would books be like nowadays if no one printed books like Lolita, The Naked Lunch or James Joyce’s works?