Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Muad'Dib was Homeschooled


That's what my dh quipped to me last night while reading his mooched copy of Dune. Okay, maybe not homeschooled, but at least instilled with one of the primary tenets of homeschooling:

Many have marked the speed at which Muad'Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. MuadDib knew that every experience carries its lesson.
-- Frank Herbert, Dune

4 comments:

Hanley Family said...

Wasn't he the one that said that the first step to learning was letting go of everything you think you know about a thing? I think it was him...I know it was in Dune.

That left me pondering for months in high school. But I guess I am just weird that way, anyway. So it might not surprise you. : )

Rebecca said...

I think so...although I haven't read it yet, I've only seen the movies, and the movies made quite a few changes in who says what, I understand. Dh keeps reading me little snippets, which is whetting my appetite for the book; as soon as he is finished, it's mine. I am consoling myself, however, with The Once and Future King.

That whole "letting go of everything you think you know" is
At first it brings to mind what Mona Brooks says about drawing: people have difficulty drawing because they draw what they know rather than what their eyes perceive (like, we "know" that the tree in the distance is taller than the nearby house, but we "see" the tree as shorter.)

And there is a certain amount of letting go of what you think you know that has to happen for learning to take place -- I guess even neuroscience supports that, what with all the research into neuroplasticity and neural pruning.

But I think there is a danger, too -- is Herbert referring to a letting go of our basic trust in our senses? That nothing is what it seems, that we cannot really know anything? I don't know if this is where he is going or not, not having read the book.

Hanley Family said...

It has been too many years for me to answer that! You can let me know when you get there.

The best fantasy books I have ever read are the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. Just the first three, though. I couldn't get through the second three. I am not into fantasy and even struggled with Lord of the Rings, but those books...maybe I'll pull them out again.

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