My Dad had a favorite term: “self fulfilling prophecies.” He warned me against them so often I took the idea to heart. They can be powerful. Shamans used them in tribal societies to put curses on folks who got so caught up in the curse that they conveniently got sick and/or died.
My Dad unwittingly handed one to me when I was in junior high that I made particular use of. When I was struggling with long division (I had a hell of a time keeping place holders straight when I subtracted remainders) he told me that “Welty’s aren’t good at math.” That was good enough for me in succeeding math and algebra classes.
I’ve more recently (starting about twenty years ago) gotten very interested in the notion of the “plasticity” of the brain or in the words of the previous post: “teaching old dogs new tricks.”
So this post from Andy Sullivan caught my cell phone learning attention this morning. Read it and c how the xperts got it wrong.
“Amblyopia is a visual disorder in which the two eyes don’t properly align; sometimes it’s called lazy eye. The standard medical advice is to treat your child early, by getting them to wear an eye patch over the good eye (in order to strengthen the weak one). If you don’t treat the problem early, you can just forget about ever fixing it.”
