Source critical

When I pick up a dictionary, especially an English one, I am always reminded of what a "precocious" (read: difficult) child I was. Up through the fourth grade, I simply categorically refused to memorize the alphabet. I refused to sing the song. It somehow occurred to me as a 4 year old that there was no real logic to it, no requirement that the letters be in that order and not some other order. It also made no difference whatsoever to my ability to read, I could know the sounds without having some artificial construct in which to place them. I happily made it all the way to 10 years old without having alphabetical order memorized.

Then one day, my fourth grade teacher passed around dictionaries to all of us. Started talking about what a dictionary was and what it was used for. I started reading it, and I liked reading it, like the way it discussed the meanings of words. But I remember the moment, clear as yesterday, when I sat there with a dictionary open in my lap, in my elementary school class, and thought to myself, "Well, now I guess I should probably memorize alphabetical order, it will make it a lot easier to use this book."

Critical thinking skills are teachable, but I think in some sense they are also innate.

P.S. I still have not changed my mind about another thing I decided as a child: money is a stupid invention.