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Every student knows the horror of the listless question that comes up early in the study of any subject. It is the call to define the subject. What is Biology? How would you define Journalism? What is Political Science? What the blazes is literature? And there are the ancillaries: Is Political Science a science or an art? Is travel literature literature too?

I am willing to bet your way of dealing with them was saner than mine. I crumpled, tongue-tied and lost for words. I watched helplessly as my chance at making a brilliant first impression flew out of the window (these questions usually come up during introductory classes). The teacher’s eyes glaze over and drift to another student (prig) slicing the air above his/her head with a raised arm.

Problem is, not everyone’s brain is as efficient an aggregator as the class prig’s. Some people have a different way of taking to the written word. They don’t process information by gathering as much of it as possible. Instead, they let it all wash over them, and hold on to bits that appear true to them. Their brains are precision instruments, as opposed to the class prig’s blunt weapon of a brain.

This is why definitions are evil. The smart student (me, in this example) is appalled because he doesn’t know the answer. His brain, having found the limiting piece of information of no practical use, has assigned it to the cranial equivalent of the wastebasket. The class prig, on the other hand, a reckless downloader, has the very words of it memorised. In addition, he/she also remembers the number of pages in the textbook, the price of it, who the publisher is, the names of all the people (if any) the book is dedicated to, and just so the package is complete, the names of a few other books by the author.

The sheer mass of the prig’s information base is to be envied. Add to that the ability of almost total and instant recall and the prig becomes a most worthy opponent indeed. The prig takes notes, writing everything down in carefully indexed notebooks. The pages have dates on top and have been worked on with three distinct colours. There are different notebooks for each subject, if not for each textbook.

The smart student has one notebook that has spaceships and superheroes sketched on the last pages (drawn during classes and/or other study hours). He wouldn’t consciously record information if he can help it. He lets his brain sort it all out for him. The elaborate filtering system in his head goes through not just classroom matter, but also conversations (overheard ones included), television, billboards, things happening by the roadside, people’s expressions, gurgling babies, the shape of things, the size of things, crushes, arguments… practically everything. The brain also processes the vast amounts of incoming data by cross-referencing it with future plans and prospects. The learning process is an ever-running program in the smart student’s brain.

It is possible for the prig to get online, look for the information needed for the assignment, download it, and disconnect. The smart student, almost unconsciously, finds himself clicking on seemingly irrelevant links and searching the web for random keywords that have nothing to do with the syllabus. It is his hungering brain, wiping all thought of pending assignments from his memory and letting the learning program override all other considerations (including that of the price of being online).

Teachers like the prig of course. It’s all tangible with the prig. Given answers to given questions. Quantifiable merit. Here… take a few extra merit points for making it all so easy for the teacher. The smart student gives the teacher nothing he/she can see. Teachers remember the smart student as bright but wonder why he doesn’t put the brightness to any use. If he did, he could score high, like the other bright kid (the prig!).

And the world goes on.

Posted on Friday, September 1st, 2006 at 10:07 am and filed under learning, books, essays.

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