Jack White: “I was thinking about a time in high school when I turned my books in to the math teacher and said, ‘I refuse to learn from you anymore.’ The song is about asking questions. A lot of people are taught just to regurgitate information. People don’t care if you learn anymore. Opinion gets trampled on.”

Black Math – The White Stripes from Yahoo! Music – sample

Don’t you think that I’m bound to react now?
Well, my fingers are definitely turning to black now
Yeah, well maybe I’ll put my love on ice
Teach myself, maybe that’ll be nice
Yeah

My books are sitting at the top of the stack now
The longer words are really breaking my back now
Maybe I’ll learn to understand
Drawing a square with a pencil in hand, yeah

Ah,ah,ah,ah,ah
Ah,ah,ah,ah,ah

Mathematically turning the page
Unequivocally showing my age
I’m practically center stage
Undeniably earning your wage
Well maybe I’ll put my love on ice
And teach myself, maybe that’ll be nice, yeah

Listen master, can you answer a question?
Is it the fingers, or the brain
that you’re teaching A lesson?
I can’t tell you how proud I am
I’m writing down things that I don’t understand
Well, maybe I’ll put my love on ice
And teach myself, maybe that’ll be nice

Yeah,yeah,yeah

Black Math by The White Stripes is one of my favorites – the guitar is amazing. Did you know that Jack White has been ranked #17 on Rolling Stone’s ’The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.’ 

The great thing about many song lyrics is how open they are to interpretation. Some see in the lyrics a reference to black math and free masonry. Still others see difficulties with learning the guitar. And Jack White did have to develop his own guitar playing style due to some problems. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_White

‘White plays his barre and power chords with a different technique than most musicians. Instead of using his ring finger to fret the higher notes, Jack uses his pinky. This is because of a car accident in which his left index finger was injured and also the fact that his brothers (also musicians) would never teach him the proper way to do so.’

Of course, I’d like to see it as a spatially gifted youth having problems with the auditory sequential way of teaching - especially math, which isn’t at all suited to being taught that way. And, well, because I had so many crushes on teachers when I was in school, I’d like to think that’s what he means when he says he needs to put his love on ice.  Stop idealizing the teacher and teach himself. But that’s my interpretation.

Just found this amazing essay Spatially gifted, verbally inconvenienced by David F. Lohman, which helps me feel a bit better about my mild cluttering problem. But I was thinking, wouldn’t the visual spatial be sequentially inconvenienced as well … and what a great way to put it.  

But maybe the problem is not so much with our learning styles as it is with our educational system. I agree with Jack White, what happens in schools is not learning so much, it’s regurgitation. And even that comes second to what really matters in public schools, teaching the kids to conform and follow the rules.   

Things don’t improve much in college and university, except perhaps in liberal arts. And it’s especially in fields like education, science, and medicine that independent thinking seems frowned on and questions discouraged. I’ve had some professors who flatter you into thinking you’re superior to the common man, the everyday Joe, by very virtue of your being in their class. But you had better not challenge their assertions. You’re being indoctrinated. They call it education.

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