So this last time I tried commenting from a library computer. According to blogger I don't have permission to post comments any more. I think that just has to do with the library's computers, but maybe something has gone wrong... Blaine, do you think you could try re-adding me to the blog? Maybe that would do it. Anyway here's my comment for Blaine's post:
Tying to Catherine's last comment, I think oral knowledge when put to song becomes one of the most powerful and memorable ways to retain information and it is difficult to reverse. For example, I have been working on a song called "Not for the Life of Me" from the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie for my private voice class. Originally, I learned part of the song incorrectly. Although I hadn't practiced it long for very wrong, I found it nearly impossible to reverse the effects of that incorrect practice. Even over 100 times after I repeated that incorrect phrase correctly, I still find myself wandering to the incorrect phrase.
In this way, I agree that personal experiences with oral knowledge stick in our minds greatly. That's why the spirit communicates to us in an oral fashion. When we hear it in that way, it has a certain power that written word alone cannot possess. Listening to the delivery of King Bejamin's speech today, I have come to two conclusions:
1) Oral knowledge is the most powerful form of communication
2) Written knowledge is the most preservable form of communication
Probably the best learning experiences happen when these two mediums are combined.
Thanks Kacee, I think of those two verses in the Book of Mormon:
ReplyDelete"And now I, Nephi, cannot write all the things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking; for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men." (2 Nephi 33)
However there were still those who's talents were in the pen:
"And thou hast made us that we could write but little, because of the awkwardness of our hands. Behold, thou hast not made us mighty in writing like unto the brother of Jared, for thou madest him that the things which he wrote were mighty even as thou art, unto the overpowering of man to read them." (Ether 12:24)
Both seem to be talents of a particular person and both seem to give a strong power to the words delivered.