Knowledge...lost its value?

Knowledge these days has surely lost its value.

I find when chatting with an older generation...they argue about facts and create wasteful debates that cause arguments. Then I'll shut them up in two minutes with a quick google search on my iPhone.

I was reading in the paper that the internet is effecting our memory. Due to the amount of information, we no longer store things long term and the short term area of the brain is increasing.

Experience surely has to be power? Or the character of someone has to be power?
I've recently graduated and in some student debt, and realised now I can actually have the information to whatever I want if I have the drive to find it. So university is mostly about character building and experience and a piece of paper! However, obviously some courses do give access to special facilities and require qualified staff.


How does a person have value....what life skills do we really need to teach in school?

My point i'm really making behind the scenes, do schools teach anything these days that has any value? Are you just being a parrot, or are you getting taught how to thinking differently, how to make decisions, how to debate, how to handle relationships, how to be creative, how to be motivated...?

I personally would rather have lessons in these that will really benefit me, rather than learn about something that has no relevance. I did enjoy school, but who decides that it should be part of the syllabus to study parts of subjects? With the social culture now, surely gaming or social networking should be studied? Maybe there should be a study what you want class?

I am a keen follower of Sir Ken Robinson, and I would highly recommend his talks on TED about how education kills creativity.

Creativity tests...are they flawed?

So creativity tests such as...how many things can you do with this paper clip?

The rules of judging need to be looked at.

Just because you can think of a lot of ideas, maybe even varied ideas doesn't really make you creative? All the ideas may be worthless and have zero value. I know the philosophy is "the higher amount of ideas, the higher probability that there will be some good ones". Surely once someone knows the technique, anyone can cheat this by having a simple check list? Then the ideas are plentiful but possibly not original? Can we get the concious to be more creative?

So when you are given creativity tests...I am inclined to say it may need time to come up with original ideas.

Information needs to be digested and the sub-concious needs time to process them. My best ideas come out at night, after a full day of looking at stuff and when my concious mind is relaxed. Once relaxed, my sub-concious just throws waves or original ideas on the paper, its such a rush I often look forward to getting in bed!

So which is better...

Concious Creativity
Sub-concious Creativity

Thinking

So I'd call myself a bit of a deep thinker, maybe a big thinker at times and a lateral thinker.
I love the whole subject of thinking...how we think, different kinds of thinking, influencing thinking.

Where could thinking get me?

Well it could get me in a mess by doing to much thinking and not enough doing. Mostly it results in an overwhelming ammount of ideas coming through at night just as I get into bed! Kind of annoying, but its a bit of a rush. I'm training myself to do it during the day, but a lot of the idea generation I see seems to be forced and not very creative..