It's not always about careers. I've known people with comparatively simple jobs, sometimes even menial, who are members of Mensa and have a wide range of knowlegde on all kinds of subjects. They've been contented with a relatively simple lifestyle, having a day job with regular hours that is undemanding of their minds, leaving them enough emotional and intellectual energy to enjoy free time and the company of intelligent friends.
:') youve restored my faith in the internets; there is a higher calibre of intellect and thought out there, and i found some here: on youtube. many internets to you my kind sir :)
This clip is awesome. He is totally right... or maybe I'm just saying that because I love knowing facts that appear on the face of it not to have everyday practical application. So funny....
That is what a lot of teachers do do though. You have also matured to a point where you find this stuff interesting. Some students have a lot of other things on their mind at young ages so it can make engaging in material difficult. This is where us teachers need to focus a lot of effort (and many do) to get students engaged, but when you have 30 students in a classroom there are some students that don't get as engaged as they need to.
@Mackster44 school is for everyone, but one should take great care in choosing what you're being taught. i myself was a typical idiot-student back in the days. slept through classes and all that, so it was quite obvious i would've not survived a single day with "academic" studies. i chose the vocational route, and have worked as a specialist welder / metalworker for a decade, making fairly decent living. all thanks to someone understanding the nature of my problems in schools
A good school teacher would put the reason for learning ito perspective so that the kids become engaged in the process. Having real world examples of where one might need to make use of facts or formulii will always help "understand the point of wht it's useful". Someone with Stephens intellect should realize that.
I just may end up as Stephen's best friend. I believe myself to be the sort of person who "finds knowledge for its own sake, and finds pleasure in information." I especially dislike the people who believe learning and school to be pointless.
I had a job interview recently and was asked what I do in my spare time. I said I'm trying to learn a new language. The interviewer asked me why. I wish I could have pointed her to this clip :(
From watching the first series on DVD, it looks like they record about 40/50 minutes of QI, then edit out to fit the 30 minute slot. Usually, the clips edited out are when somebody accidentally swears, ect. This could be one of those clips. I'm not sure, but that's probably the case.
A lot of this shit on QI is stuff I could've learned in school but didn't, and now here I am several years later actively seeking out this stuff. I think we need to re-invent the education system to make it more interesting & engaging so people will actually WANT to learn. Having Stephen Fry teaching classes may be one good way, but he can't be everywhere at once...
I sympathise because I was always being punished for asking questions, even though I never meant it badly. It's probably too late now for that specific thing but if that happens again, I think it would be worth going to that teacher at the end of a lesson (or if you see him in the hall or something) and explaining that you didn't mean to be rude. It's hard for them to know when they're in the middle of trying to teach the whole class. And teachers have bad days.
@oooISPYooo He isn't talking about memorisation of facts, he is talking about a desire to learn. Regardless of what you think, EVERY "genius" was curious. Curious to understand, to learn, to discover. This is called learning. Most people who reject their education, or reject the concept of learning do end up poor/on the doll, it is a fact of life. A lot of intelligent people do leave school, but they go on to teach themselves things, or learn in another way. He never mentions failing school.
I once asked a math teather why we needed to learn a pecifik thing ( don´t remember what it was something about geometry I think) and he got really angry telling me that if I did´nt want to learn it I could leave the classroom. The thing is that I really wanted to know when I would be able to use it, and I was n´t asking cause i didn´t wanna learn it. so there are 2 kinds of people who ask that question.
@ZoneNet1 I'm American, but from what I've observed the BBC really likes to stray from any real televised moment of catharsis or poignancy -which is the opposite of American television, though the constant simulation of conflict and catharsis in US tv is bad in its own right.
I think what the "we'll never use this" brigade is lacking is context. A good teacher will provide that, a poor one will just spit out names, places, and dates to commit to memory. For example, learning trivia about the US Civil War, or WWII is one thing, and seemingly fruitless. But if you learn how and why those battles or campaigns happened the way they did and their aftermath, it can give you a better understanding of how things work today.
They really are! I'm waiting for the day they announce their civil partnership (Alan would have to lose his wife first though haha... But one can still dream :P)
@KaseytheJudge That's actually not a bad idea, having weekly lectures done by Stephen Fry on various subjects. Although, with the estimated amount of subscribers/students, you'd need to staff a LOT of people to mark the work.
@AlanHilter No matter how good the teacher, a bad curriculum will raise no ones interest, including the teacher, and then no one learns. Which, oddly enough, I would suggest is exactly the boat we're all in now.
thanks for the comment/story type thing - genuinely :) i don't quite know what to say to that but thought it rude not to reply i'm glad your life worked out - if not how u originally planned i know i should have probably tried harder in maths but it got to a point where i knew i'd learnt enough to get by in life + i was sure that most of the graphs and algebra etc would be pointless for me to persevere with as i hated them so much anyway i hope u are happy + sorry to hear about the back :(
Uh-oh. I'm a student right now, and I'm always wondering about the point of it all. If Mr. Fry's right, I'm going to end up a drunk... ...I'm scared now. Mr. Fry's a very good comedian and I respect his views, but I'm seriously worried...
@Xanatos712 Weekly lectures by Stephen Fry... they should do a BBC series on them and have it added to the curriculum as a compulsory thing. My teachers always play BBC clips and episodes and such in my lessons and they're so boring so if Stephen did series about everything we'd have children with IQs of 500 by the time they're 12! I think they could always use volunteer markers.... or examiners; give them something interesting to mark :p
I don't know what Best Buy is, or what the four floor equivalent would be, but is it at least better than working at MacD's? Thanks for sharing this, anyway. By the way, Jamie Oliver rather foolishly said in front of the cameras once that he's never read a book in his life. Luckily for him, he's very successful as a cook.
Fry's argument is kind of weak if say the student weren't interested in the subject to begin with. You learn something for the sake of learning when you do have interest in that particular subject. It can't possibly be pleasurable if maths simply doesn't do anything to you.
Its usually a person who does a great deal of TV watching that, ironically, asks such stupid questions... What's the point of following football, watching the X-factor, playing video games, eating more than your nutritional needs in food, drinking alcohol, taking a holiday, I mean is any of this useful in your future life? Stephen Fry's response reminds me of this: 'Dawkins vs. Tyson ' on youtube GURANTEED YOU'LL SMILE :)...
@joelomax Maybe school isn't for everyone, but how do you find out who it's for if you don't give everyone the opportunity to learn, and make it mandatory to prevent sheer laziness from being the main influence on someone's life? Aside from that, it's clear that an educated society does better economically than an uneducated one,so mandatory education is a prerequisite if you want a successful society.
I love Fry to bits but this is bollocks. You can easily go "What the hell is this for?" all through your school years and still end up sober, interested and involved and.. well, a watcher of QI, in essence.
@soulofshiver No I did not, and I see no reason for you commenting on my spelling when the only thing wrong with it is that I put a k instead of a c and that I missed the s. So what if I made a spelling mistake? And in my defence, though I do not think that I need it, english is my second language and in my language specifc is spelled specifik.
@MrAnonymity oh. okay im a little late on this but anyway - my Chemistry teacher had the "power" to put us to SLEEP with his voice. Im not even talking about drifting off occasionally, i mean a heavy deep sleep. Im not kidding you the only reason anyone stayed awake was that someone managed to break the spell and get him to be, sort of just another guy and just do nonsense in class. Chemistry is interesting but 2words from his mouth and i was snoozing. Crazy.
oh no!! i'm one of those children! (well, i'm 17) -where maths is concerned, anyway i love learning history and well, anything else really but i simply can't stick any sort of maths that won't be necessary for me to use in later life surds for instance. what and why?!?!?! sorry for turning this into a mini rant and possibly distracting people from the genius that is fry but maths is a very sensitive subject with me p.s. plus my maths teacher was AWFUL and it was fun to antagonise him
@jacksawild First of: thank you for not insulting my intelligence by pointing out my spelling mistake :) and a second thanks for saying that it was a fair question. In truth I asked for an example of a real life situation in which it could be used because I sometimes understand things better when they can be applied to real life situations, but it appears that both my teatcher and most youtubers got the wrong idea, but not you - so again thank you :)
There seem to be a lot of people who misunderstand what Stephen said. He never mentioned intelligence. What he said was that the people who take no INTEREST in learning end up in the shitty end of the public pool of life. Drawing a conclusion and ranting on without self-criticism or second thoughts seems to be the theme here, so to all those pathetic dimwits who consider themselves better just because they bash Mr. Fry for saying something and people for agreeing: Shut up. For your own good.
That's not true, I know of plenty of philosophers and thinkers who were extremely well read and well learned who were alcoholics that never did anything with their lives other than think about it.
@FallingDownDeep you can pretty much work out what every word means in English without ever hearing it before if you know latin and ancient greek. Not pointless
@dexterccf2 Honestly do you really think that this is a fruitful comment? I don't see any reason for people questioning my question for my teacher, a question that I might add was only asked in an attempt to understand and learn a specific mathematical formula, or my spelling. It was simply a question that I felt that I had to ask so that I could learn the formula, and a spelling mistake that anyone that does not have english as their first langage could have made.
I love geography, the problem however is geography teachers. If one associates a subject with the teacher, then it has a huge effect on young people. I would say it's like your dad listening to your own band. Solution: Teaching kids that alcohol and underage pregnancy and the latest bands are the best things in the world. Probably not. If that was the case, the world will be full of atheists.
oh i'll manage. he didnt. heh. the teacher in question lost his job and is currently a typical gutter-drunk. there went his academical future he used to brag about :D while yours truly has a job with a salary. not much but its huge deal at the current unstable times. oh i'll manage :)
