The other day, the thought struck me that literally every avocation, sport, pastime, and hobby can be (an often is) used as a metaphor for life. Sometimes these perspectives are quite hackneyed (i.e. close to what pro athletes say in TV interviews), and other times they might be quite instructive.
As an example, I used to be quite an adept in the art of playing chess. After several years, I could start to see people and situations in a different manner. I could see activities and situations in a much more abstract, strategic manner (if I chose to…). Long distance running taught me the real (read: deep) value in patience, and that things are usually never what you think they are. This was because I started to see that endurance activities (long distance running, bicycle racing) have a huge mental component, especially in that it was mostly all about one’s will.
I imagine that there are some hunters and fishermen who have deep perspectives best seen through their avocational interests. The same goes for my experiences playing guitar…When playing in a combo (irrespective of the musical genre or the number of, or quality of the other players) I can see a lot about the people I play with, things which I wouldn’t have necessarily seen (or not to have seen with the same sort of clarity).
The thing which is interesting about this quite well known (and actually quite obvious) form of perceiving things is that it has real power and value for the adherent. Taking this as a given, you never hear about the value of having multiple types of perception to apply to almost any situation. I guess that this also falls between the cracks in how we extol activities which are of value to students and children (yet never really taking the time to consider exactly what it is that makes these activities worth the time).
There are some other activities which have comparably in-obvious advantages. Take Algebra, while this is the bane of most students (and their parents), the fact of the matter is that, as with other forms of language, mathematics has a peculiar property of ‘sinking in’ regardless of whether you use it (admittedly more use helps!). The net result is an advantage in the rigor of one’s thoughts and arguments. For most people, this is of greater value than the fact that it is an activity which ‘might’ have ‘obvious’ value to them in their lives.
I guess I have found two topics (albeit closely related) which have huge advantages in later life (but they are NEVER presented as such!).
I guess that these thoughts (and how they are used in actuality) might be construed as being within the realm of metacognition. I say this because they are develop-able techniques which can give the user a wider variety of controllable methods with which to deal with perceptions and experiences. Why do so few teachers deal with these sorts of topics?
