2024-January-28 Rev. & additions.

I taught karate and judo for many years when living in Memphis, TN. Then at the University of Tennessee while working on a degree; then in Chattanooga where I worked for too many years. Mainly the students were young people, children generally above age 12 and teenagers and young adults. But I also worked with some very elderly people. I sort of am in that class myself today, somewhat elderly.

What I consistently found out and what parents consistently told me - was (and it is still true today) school grades of their children improved dramatically! with their training in the Martial Arts. Not over night. Nothing really worth while happens fast, in most cases.

But their grades improved and got better and better as they themselves got better at being able to control their bodies physically and MOST IMPORTANT they acquired both CONFIDENCE IN THEMSELVES and MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 

I cannot stress more strongly how these two attributes play such an important role in a young person's success with school and also with their behavior and sense of personal worth. Their self-esteme.  Often I have seen that fear in the child, also in the teen, go hand in hand with poor results in school work and also, paradoxically, in their behavior and, when present, delinquency. In some measure too - with drug involvement.  What more can I say. Perhaps Sigmund Freud could have figured it out.

We often fear - being helpless - being unable to respond to a situation. Now this is not limited just to fear of being unable to "handle oneself" physically, say when the school bully wants to start trouble. For instance, we are confronted with, "What! are you a chicken s*%( " this being a retorical question. [where the question is actually a statement; i.e., "You are a chicken s*%^" That is the meaning of a rhetorical question. It is being used, as for instance in this example, stating that YOU ARE ''chicken.'' 

Parents have the final say as to how their child or teenage son/daughter should respond.  Many will say to their little ones, "My Son, Jesus taught that you should "turn the over cheek." "Sure mom, sure dad, and get smashed on that side of the face too."  I don't really know about the girls.  I suppose they could be taught to say, "I'm sorry but that is just not lady like."

But here is the point.  What is lacking in the above situations is NOT that the young person - and it is also true of adults through the spectrum of time span where as they approach their journey's end - they either do or don't FEAR DEATH. For death does come.  So, we get to the word, CONFIDENCE and it is to be applied to > confidence in ones-self: a persons confidence in his ability to "handle himself" in various situations.  In the case with young people, - it is - fear of failure - whether it is in school work, academics, or willingness to - defend yourself physically.

<aside> a young child who has been, say, beaten, physically abused, etc., - - you can understand that he WILL lack confidence in himself - because as a small child he is indeed HELPLESS to adequately respond to the abuse.  Thus is the feeling of helplessness implanted in him by a REAL situation - an EXPERIENCE.

To elaborate deeper - learning difficulties can often be a defensive response to previous trauma which we want to avoid happening again.  Which does not necessarily have to be physical trauma. Let us say that in teaching a very young child to walk - well the child will often stumble and fall in its early attempts to walk, in fact also, just to stand steady for a short while. 

To put it another way,  why set yourself up for failure when you KNOW you are going to fail. The equation to be solved is in Mark Twain's proverbial cat who sat on the hot stove - and he will never get on any stove again.  One of the best examples of what I am trying to say is in this link:

https://www.wbez.org/stories/what-we-can-learn-from-mark-twains-cat-who-sat-on-a-hot-stove/04030cfd-1611-4e14-845f-71d0d8704146 

"It's important to make sure that we don't learn the wrong lessons from pain, frustration, criticism, or failure.  Like a cat, we want to learn not to sit on a hot stove - but maybe we still want to be able to sit on a stove that's cold."

  To be able to "read this story for free ..." you've got to "sign up" and give them your email.

You can go here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28803/28803-h/28803-h.htm and read or copy and paste as you desire. If you want to read the text later on your computer and if you have Microsoft Word, in the top menu go to VIEW and on the left of the menu (using MS Word 2016) select "Web Layout." Then go to the above Gutenberg.org link and click on the book you want and copy and paste directly into your word with "Web Layout." This will copy all of the content shown on the Browser, including pictures, etc. If you highlight just a sentence or two at the very top of the start of the story and then hit keys control, shift and END, you will have the entire book "highlighted" and then just do a CONTROL-C for copy and then use CONTROL V for paste.

 

 

In my old age I like to watch old reruns fromTV days in the 1950s - mid 1980s. It returns me back to my younger days when I didn't have quite so many aches and pains. One of my favorite TV runs from the past was with Chuck Norris and the show, Walker, Texas Ranger. Chuck was also a karate champion. If memory serves me right, he once won first place in a June Rhee national championship when he went against Walter Worthy, a black fighter in Ishinru style. This was about 1964 - 1966 era. At any rate, one of the Walker Texas Ranger series did show an episode of the very thing I am talking about in the above. The conncetion with good training in karate or judo with improved grades, confidence in self and better behavior and decision making. 

Here is the thing also that I have concluded from observation over many years and also from my own experience in life. It doesn't have to be karate, or judo, or aikido, or jujitsu or kendo, etc. It can be ANY sport or activity that requires concentration, self-discipline and dedication to succeed (perhapst it is better to day, determination to succeed) - and that has a true dedicated coach - who coaches using only POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT and advances the student with small steps - with each step being a success for that person. If he the student falters or trips along the way - NEVER TO ADMONISH the student, the child or teen or senior adult - YOU'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT Johnny if you don't pay attention to what I say. Etc. You often ruin all that you have accomplished with the student when you criticize him in such a way. You only reinforce his feelings of being a failure - which often manifests itself (shows itself) in school failure, delinquency or behavior problems, or joining a gang to recover his self-esteme.

I will add too, that shoving a lot of facts into a childs head is a path to their coming to dislike very much the learning experience. School is a bore below the college level (This is my opinion of the typcial public schools today where there is LOW investment in terms of money - into the education of students).  At least it was for me. It is the same redundant material repeated over and over again. 

I think that 80% of what we need to know, (and this is using Pareto's 80/20 rule, observation, educationally wise can be learned on our own if we have built up the necessary self-confidence, self-discipline, and a love of learning and CURIOSITY to know new things and STRONG READING SKILLS. 

To get to be a SELF-TAUGHT student you MUST HAVE DEVELOPED VERY STRONG READING SKILLS. AS (WAS IT NANCY REAGAN WHO SAID IT) READING IS FUNDAMENTAL. But let a child learn to enjoy the reading experience by early in life reading comic books of his chosing. Then he will connect images with the words. And with time as he broadens his reading experience he will see the stream of images in his mind as he reads. 

At age near nine when I landed on American soil in San Francisco I could read not a word. The alphabet was Greek to me, as the saying goes. But Ruth and Janey (Dr. Mary Jane Sherfey, MD, Psychiatry) used the comic book method on me. And it took! And my favorite comics were the Walt Disney Donald Duck series. I loved Gyrogearloose and have thought to have my name legally changed to that except you have to go to court to do that and I have thought that no judge would follow or agree with my reasoning. So, Gyro remains only a cominc book and an instrument of stability in my mind.

In closing on this topic I want to add this reflection of thought. 

If I am not having fun doing what I am doing - then what am I going to do? Typically? I am going to quit doing that which I find unpleasant in doing. That is the problem very much with the getto schools such as in Chicago, Harlem, Atlanta, etc. The students, young ones and teens are fed so much undigestable and unrelated to their life "crap" that they can't wait until they can get out of that situation. 

I have a solution. Move the rudder sharply and turn 180 degrees and go in the opposite direction. Make the learning experience fun. And do it through doing fun things, things that boys and girls like to do. Such as sports, building things, experiementing, hearing music they like and THEN introduce to them gradually to some music theory. Let them connect the LANGUAGE of music with the sonds of music. Make their learning be both intensly visual and sound. Forget feeding them with a bunch of facts of which 90% THEY WILL FORGET. (Well established fact). Only the distaste of having to memorize such useless things as historcial dates will be remembered. Instead, let their history lessons be through good and entertaining videos. And then have the discussions in the class about what does everybody think. "Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend ..." "... is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land." 

Who said that nasty thing "socialist culture?" Well, just say that "socialist culture" is nasty to speak such a thing in America, Land of the Free and Home of Free Speech. Is the rest of what Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, the great liberator of his people (in my opinion and based on facts in history) said also nasty? Wrong? Whose got it wrong when the U.S.A. mightly in its military is down near 15th in academic achievement in the 12th and below grades on international measurements. What gives?

(need to clarify and structure better)

In my opinion, and it is just that, my opinion but I do believe others think likewise; the problems is that The Republic of the United States of America (what is actually left of this Republic) is feeding the national wealth of this great country (at least for a while longer) to the beast of the Military-Industrial Complex and ignoring the vast poor sections of this country who don't seem to matter to either the Republicans or the Democrats and certainly not to Big Corporation Business who now pose as the people's representatives but are in fact the payed-off tools of that Military-Industrial Complex and Big Corporations - that General or the Army and President of the United States warned the nation about. Listen and watch here on youtube.com Ike's speech which has not yet been censored by youtuby but may yet be as the Greater Economic Depression which is now upon us gets worse and worse and INFECTS US ALL BUT the Royalty of this country, the representatives of the commoners, the Congress, the White House Lords and the Aristocracy of the Nation, the Super Wealthy Class, the Elites. Download it while you can and think it over. Ike was, in my opinion Amerrica's greatest 20th Century President Co-Equal with FDR at identical greatness.

2024-Jan-28, 6:41 am, later reconstruct above paragraph.

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