Scientology Study Tech In The Real World

[Man de la Mancha]

If I had a cent for every time I see "your" instead of "you're", "there" instead of "their" and even "two" instead of "too"... I'd be very wealthy indeed.

No doubt we're beginning to see the effects of a school system that tries to hide the fact that some kids are just better at school than others. It's much more politically correct to dumb down the whole system so noone is offended. America is near last in education amongst post-industrial nations. The only reason the U.S. leads the world technologically is because we grant visas to foreign scientists.

While good grammar is priceless in the professional world, I don't think it really matters whether everything is perfect in forums and chat rooms. Often, people just want to get their thoughts across as if they were speaking, and just watch the presidential debates if you don't think smart people can screw up grammar in real time!

I went to quite a bit of school after leaving Scientlogy. I always cleared words or concepts that threw my mind off track, and I did very well in school. But, then again, I've done well in school since kindergarten. Now if I could only figure out how to get rich like all those rogues with bad grammar!

I think the study tech is useful but often misapplied or over applied. And no, I was never the guy with a can of PlayDough. Mental imagery works fine, but just like clay demos, the student must be honest with himself as to his understanding of the subject matter.

[Man de la Mancha]

I always get a kick when I hear those actual "English language" words that only Scientologists use. I know there are at least 3 or 4 that I always catch myself using, but the only one I can think of right now is "disabused". I have never in my entire life heard a non-Scn say that word. And I've never met a Scientologist who didn't say that word. Can anyone think of other words like this? I know there's at least a few more. Oh yeah... "dilettante". I actually say that word sometimes in real life, like a man from another planet or something. In fact, aren't both those words in KSW, the most word cleared document in Scientology?

[Mark A. Baker]

I always get a kick when I hear those actual "English language" words that only Scientologists use. I know there are at least 3 or 4 that I always catch myself using, but the only one I can think of right now is "disabused". I have never in my entire life heard a non-Scn say that word. And I've never met a Scientologist who didn't say that word. Can anyone think of other words like this? I know there's at least a few more. Oh yeah... "dilettante". I actually say that word sometimes in real life, like a man from another planet or something.

I have, frequently.


Mark A. Baker

[Helena Handbasket]

No doubt we're beginning to see the effects of a school system that tries to hide the fact that some kids are just better at school than others.

In many industrialized countries, the education system is deliberately "dumbed down", not out of any political correctness, but in an attempt to create two different classes of people -- "producers" and "consumers".

Producers hire people to work in their factories to produce goods they sell at a profit. Consumers are very carefully trained by the school system into a "paycheck and mall" philosophy -- buying expensive goods they don't need with wages supplemented by credit card debt. Every time this happens, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.

The book Weapons Of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto explains it all. I strongly recommend it.

Helena

[Petey C]

There is a direct causative relationship between the general education level of parents and the general education level of children. Also between education and prejudice/discrimination - the higher the education, the less it exists.

And between maternal education and child health too. And the best predictor of academic success in later life is joint family reading (ie parents reading to kids).

[Student of Trinity]

Both "disabuse" and "dilettante" are in standard use, though not common. Usually one disabuses someone of some misconception. Scientology does seem a little preoccupied with dilettancy, but the term and concept are not peculiar to Scientologese.

I think it's important when assessing "study tech" to distinguish between two very different forms of "word clearing". On the one hand there is the sensible, ordinary practice of looking up unfamiliar words whose precise meaning is important. Hubbard didn't invent this, and deserves not the slightest shred of credit for emphasizing it. It's a no-brainer.

On the other hand there is the practice that does seem to be unique to Hubbard, which is looking up lots of common words until you find a combination of their alternative definitions that will let you interpret a confusing text in a way that makes sense. This seems to be Hubbard's actual contribution to education theory. It poses as a mere extension of the first, sensible kind of word-learning: a brilliantly radical extension, perhaps, but still a sensible practice. In fact it's quite horrible, because common English words have a huge range of possible meanings, and by choosing different dictionary definitions of all the words in almost any text, you can make the text mean almost anything.

Most of these interpretations will be perverse violations of register and context, and would never be accepted by any educated reader as legitimate readings. But they all become valid according to Hubbard's devious principle of dictionary definition. So Hubbard can write stupid gobbledegook, and faithful Scientology word clearers will themselves perform the linguistic acrobatics that are needed in order to spin his straw into gold, or at least into something solid. Then because it has cost them so much mental effort to turn Hubbard's gibberish into some reasonable banality, they consider it a hard-earned profundity. Hubbard is a genius, and his marvelous Study Tech has enabled them to follow his deep thoughts.

[HelluvaHoax!]

It is, a very old and well established tech, and from where do you think hubbard had the other idea?

Gradient Gra"di*ent, a. [L. gradiens, p. pr. of gradi to step,
to go. See Grade.]
1. Moving by steps; walking; as, gradient automata.
--Wilkins.
[1913 Webster]

Mark A. Baker

Nice!

Now, if I can just clear where he got the Gorilla Goal Implants from, I can get right back on the bridge. LOL

Ron says it is from 256 trillion-trillion years ago, but my Self-Analysis circular disk prompter doesn't go back that far.

[Thrak]

Couple of thought's I've had on this:

I agree the "MU" drech is largely a waste of time in that acting like a sneaky little word is the monkey wrench in the works. What absurd wastes of time we all had to endure on that crap. On the other hand, I believe in technical positions, when you pay for an expert for example you pay for somebody that knows all the words. When I hear somebody talk about amortization my head starts to spin, and I'm sure I could return the favor talking about my job. But the words represent concepts so if you don't get the concept then you won't get the word either.

One thing I do agree with though is the check sheet. I've flunked courses because I got behind and couldn't catch up. I believe letting kids learn at their own pace is good, and I think the troubleshooting aspect of finding out where a kid went of the rails is good too. A lot of schools are run like a race and it can be a heavy trip on a kids head to fail when he could have passed if somebody just helped him out a bit.

[LongTimeGone]

Couple of thought's I've had on this:

I agree the "MU" drech is largely a waste of time in that acting like a sneaky little word is the monkey wrench in the works. What absurd wastes of time we all had to endure on that crap. On the other hand, I believe in technical positions, when you pay for an expert for example you pay for somebody that knows all the words. When I hear somebody talk about amortization my head starts to spin, and I'm sure I could return the favor talking about my job. But the words represent concepts so if you don't get the concept then you won't get the word either.

One thing I do agree with though is the check sheet. I've flunked courses because I got behind and couldn't catch up. I believe letting kids learn at their own pace is good, and I think the troubleshooting aspect of finding out where a kid went of the rails is good too. A lot of schools are run like a race and it can be a heavy trip on a kids head to fail when he could have passed if somebody just helped him out a bit.

I agree, Thrak, with everything you say here.

Most kids either skate over the word they don't understand, make up a meaning that fits in with their idea of what is being said or ask someone "what does that mean?".

Technical words have to be understood before the technical concept can be understood - If someone is interested in the technical subject they will automatically find out what the word means.

Getting a bit of help is the answer; that's why schools have teachers and not supervisors. Those teachers are trained, usually pretty well, and their skill in instruction is reflected in the exam results of the students.

Taking the MU argument to the absud extreme and being forced to define every possible use of the word the, because the student hesitated with his answer, is lunacy.

Someone earlier mentioned misspellings such as there instead of they're, etc, well that isn't a misunderstood word; it just a lack of spelling knowledge.

The English language has a plethora of homophones, homographs and homonyms, which makes it, in my mind, amazing that we can spell anything correctly.

[Love that word plethora].

I also love the word trivia - Comes from the Latin Tri and Via.
which loosely means Three Roads.

What does this have to do with today's understanding of the word trivia?

Because the ancient Romans used to have notice boards where three roads intersected and people could leave little scraps of information on the notice board.


LTG

Edit: I suggest that 94.27% of the English speaking people on the planet say "In one foul swoop." - I have made it my mission in life to point out that it should be "One fell swoop." LTG

[Rene Descartes]

It is, a very old and well established tech, and from where do you think hubbard had the other idea?

Mark A. Baker

So instead of calling it "skipped step" he called it "skipped gradient".

Yeah it sounds so much cooler.

I have a different idea as to where he pulled it from.

Didn't he also talk about "a runway" of sorts in that HCOB Barriers to Study.

Gradient is a term from Vector Analysis. It has to do with steepness. Due to the runway analogy I always thought he had pulled the word from his attempted Calculus studies. I picture him understanding the concept of steepness as it applies to Gradient but not to anything else regarding Gradient and especialy not to the Mathematics itself.

The way Hubabrd defines Gradient it applies more to things like playing a musical instrument, gymnastics, athletic activities, dancing, karate, etc.

The only thing that I can see it applying to in an Org is meter drills and maybe some TRs where the coach gets tougher on the student.

The runway was too steep. (not his exact words but maybe someone has the quotes)

Rd00