2024-11-11
I don't feel like I'm a particularly smart person. Of course, "being smart" can mean a myriad of things. Some people might look at me and say that I'm smart because I got good grades in school or because I finished a university degree.
However, the reason why I got good grades in school is because I relied on rote memorization. Great for maths and getting a computer science degree. Not so great if you want to be able to solve complex problems that aren't from a textbook, or if you want to discuss abstract concepts in depth. I can parrot definitions and pull out common proofs but outside of that... Nada.
Looking back on my education, I wonder if I ever really understood any of what I learned, or if I ever "learned" anything at all. It's strange for me to say this as someone who proclaims to "love learning." Maybe I just like listening to smart people talk about things they actually know about.
For example, if you were to take a look at Bloom's taxonomy, I just clear the first level of learning: knowledge. This is simply remembering, identifying, or listing things. There are several levels of learning above that: understanding, applying,analyzing, evaluating, and creating, in that order. Depending on the subject, I can probably engage in high levels of learning, but I would safely say that most of my time spent learning is in the knowledge level.
Knowing this, you would think my work is cut out for me. I genuinely struggle to engage with concepts on a deeper level. Maybe it's because of the English courses I've been taking, but I consistently feel like there is something always out of reach for me to understand something. It frustrates me when I think about it.
I've read a few resources on this and really, and one way to remedy this is time and good instruction. Both of which I feel like I'm lacking right now and lacked in the past. In the condensed courses I'm taking, there is very little time to pause and really think.
This is really a sore spot for me because I can so clearly see my deficits but trying to fix them feels impossible. A part of me thinks that, maybe, I'm just a simpleton who is not made for critical thinking. It feels like I'm trying to cultivate an property that is innate in some people but not in others. Like I'm trying to be someone that I'm not. This is all very self-defeating thinking but it comes across my mind often.
Anyway, no real answers here. I'm about to go and continue to contemplate my life and what I'm doing with it, for the nth time.