Maths?

I've always naturally found maths very easy. It's English and the meaning of words I really struggled with.

There is some logic behind how many people struggle with maths though. A lot of memory is needed to be able to do maths, particularly working memory. If you have difficulty in this area, it will make learning/doing maths more challenging.

I wasn't very good at English either, partly because of undiagnosed dyslexia, but also because we were never taught punctuation, we were expected to just absorb it from reading. By secondary school, the books were just so boring and old. It's surprising that someone who reads as much as I do and always did read a lot was so bad at English.

I think doing a lot of reading isn’t always enough. Reading is a passive, even if you are digesting history or genome sequencing or whatever it might be. I think most of us need an active learning experience, to ‘learn by doing’.

I totally agree with you Pegg, it shouldn't, but it often is.

I think these people are missing on on some great books, but then thats thier loss. I can be as bad in someways, I alwys think that the minute somethings entered for something like the Booker prize, it means it will be unreadable. Although, to be honest I have read Hilary Mantels Wolf Hall series which is a Booker prize winner and I was almost right. It was a very difficult read, especially Wolf Hall, Bring up the Bodies was better, but still hard going in places. Hilary Mantell said in an interview shortly before her death that she deliberately made he books hard work to read, I don't remember why, but I remember not agreeing with her.

I remember when my daughter was a teenager and she and her friends really enjoyed all the point horror books, they'd read to each other in a sort of informal book club. Thier English teacher went mental when she found out and told them to stop wasting thier time on such rubbish and read proper books, like Jane Austin and other classics of literature. Personally I was happy that she had such an interest in books and was reading at all.

I find a lot of whats called literature unreadable and I don't understand it at all or see why something so seemingly iincomprehensible is seen as so good? I was amazed to read that many autistic girls love this sort of literature and that it can be seen as an indicator of ASC? I thought 'why?'

A lot of people don't like anything popular, purely because its popular.

TheCatWoman said:

Genre fiction is used as an insult by many to describe anything that isn't "mainstream",

It shouldn't be an insult, 'genre' fiction is just a sub-genre of fiction; which is itself a genre of literature. It's just categorisation - some may enjoy assigning an imagined hierarchy to fiction, but it has no bearing on the fact.

Genre is absolutely no bar to greatness or popularity, as can easily be seen. 

Some things I think you definately need to learn by doing rather than reading, I mean I can read a cook book, but that dosen't mean I can cook.. I think the ethos of my school was to make learning as boring as possible so as not to bother the teachers.

**************

Genre fiction is used as an insult by many to describe anything that isn't "mainstream", although how they make the distinction is beyond me. Sci Fi in particular often explores the grand themes of life, ethics, moral dilemas, relationships between different peoples, I don't understand why that is somehow invalid, just because it's set on another planet with or without advanced technology. Sci-Fi was exploring how we navigate near human AI interactions decades ago, when most people thought it would never happen and the idea of a computer in every home, let alone in every pocket, was so out there as to be ridiculous.

A lot of crime fiction explores a whole range of emotions and how emotions get entangled, it allows us a safe space in which explore our darker emotions.

Historical fiction allows us to gain an insight into what life would have been like centuries ago, how it smells, what was eaten, the manners etc

I think a lot of literary criticism, like art criticism is snobbery in another guise and a cover for insecurity.

Some things I think you definately need to learn by doing rather than reading, I mean I can read a cook book, but that dosen't mean I can cook.. I think the ethos of my school was to make learning as boring as possible so as not to bother the teachers.

**************

Genre fiction is used as an insult by many to describe anything that isn't "mainstream", although how they make the distinction is beyond me. Sci Fi in particular often explores the grand themes of life, ethics, moral dilemas, relationships between different peoples, I don't understand why that is somehow invalid, just because it's set on another planet with or without advanced technology. Sci-Fi was exploring how we navigate near human AI interactions decades ago, when most people thought it would never happen and the idea of a computer in every home, let alone in every pocket, was so out there as to be ridiculous.

A lot of crime fiction explores a whole range of emotions and how emotions get entangled, it allows us a safe space in which explore our darker emotions.

Historical fiction allows us to gain an insight into what life would have been like centuries ago, how it smells, what was eaten, the manners etc

I think a lot of literary criticism, like art criticism is snobbery in another guise and a cover for insecurity.

I totally agree with you Pegg, it shouldn't, but it often is.

I think these people are missing on on some great books, but then thats thier loss. I can be as bad in someways, I alwys think that the minute somethings entered for something like the Booker prize, it means it will be unreadable. Although, to be honest I have read Hilary Mantels Wolf Hall series which is a Booker prize winner and I was almost right. It was a very difficult read, especially Wolf Hall, Bring up the Bodies was better, but still hard going in places. Hilary Mantell said in an interview shortly before her death that she deliberately made he books hard work to read, I don't remember why, but I remember not agreeing with her.

I remember when my daughter was a teenager and she and her friends really enjoyed all the point horror books, they'd read to each other in a sort of informal book club. Thier English teacher went mental when she found out and told them to stop wasting thier time on such rubbish and read proper books, like Jane Austin and other classics of literature. Personally I was happy that she had such an interest in books and was reading at all.

I find a lot of whats called literature unreadable and I don't understand it at all or see why something so seemingly iincomprehensible is seen as so good? I was amazed to read that many autistic girls love this sort of literature and that it can be seen as an indicator of ASC? I thought 'why?'

A lot of people don't like anything popular, purely because its popular.

TheCatWoman said:

Genre fiction is used as an insult by many to describe anything that isn't "mainstream",

It shouldn't be an insult, 'genre' fiction is just a sub-genre of fiction; which is itself a genre of literature. It's just categorisation - some may enjoy assigning an imagined hierarchy to fiction, but it has no bearing on the fact.

Genre is absolutely no bar to greatness or popularity, as can easily be seen.