Painting, modelling and theory; writing, reading & comprehension. These are practice. Getting your painting into a gallery or your book into the hands of an unobligated reader - that is execution.
In Civil Engineering, we ran problem after problem in school. Nothing I do now professionally in civil design resembles the practice I did in school.
Which is just to say, execution should be the goal of ALL programs, but none seem to come close.
[edit] it's Friday morning and I'm done; any suggestions for a synonym for 'unobligated'?
I agree that they are practice in some sense, but the end result is valuable immediately. When I was a young student, I would take my painting, science experiment or short story home to show my mom. When I did well in math I showed my grade, not the actual work. Here is where we find perception of activity vs. successful comprehension.
Math is not valuable unless it has purpose and if some are not given purpose they will stop investigating it. It's easy to categorize those who have that viewpoint. As someone who found math later in life on my own terms, I can say that it was much more enjoyable than what was being taught as a student.
This was foretold in each math class I had in the schools I attended. There was always a "Math is necessary for..." poster on the wall in the classroom, and yet, no other class had a "Art is necessary for..." or "History is necessary for..." poster. We've identified the problem. Now what do we do about it?
Language Studies (aside from immersion) also could benefit from being more execution-oriented. For me, 4 years of French class was easily lapped by a month in Quebec.
I completely agree. I found math later too, at 29, and had it been taught better it might have clicked with me earlier.
The only academic program I've experienced that got right to the crux of its execution was History: but only because I feel its only real purpose is self reflection.
I found math interesting in school, but then I'm also virtually certain I was the only one in my high school classes actually reading the math textbooks. Even at an engineering college, I don't think reading the calculus textbook was the norm.
I like the notion of 'unobligated' in that it stresses that, for this instance, in school one's readers are obligated. With 'volunteer' I don't feel that condition is evoked; in fact, I can imagine people volunteering to read one's as yet unpublished work, but still feeling obligated to volunteer as a friend. But 'unobligated' is a mouth full of tongue to say, and if it should express freedom and willingness then it should lyrically sound that way. 'Volunteer' accomplishes that part, but leaves me wanting to tack on another qualifier.
In Civil Engineering, we ran problem after problem in school. Nothing I do now professionally in civil design resembles the practice I did in school.
Which is just to say, execution should be the goal of ALL programs, but none seem to come close.
[edit] it's Friday morning and I'm done; any suggestions for a synonym for 'unobligated'?