That comment was frequently made on my school reports.
Quiet = Listened carefully, attentive.
Shy = Didn't talk in class, limited circle of friends
Polite = Well spoken, established and practised good manners, i.e: says, "Please", "Thank You", and "Sorry", more than most
Outside of school, however, I was more often told that I am a chatterbox.
I was also a very sociable child, I didn't have any significant problems making friends. Although, it is also true to say I became more discerning as I grew up. Few children seemed to share my developing interests. While I wanted to incorporate aspects of myths and legends into imaginative game playing, the other kids had scant understanding or knowledge of what these actually were.
I was also developing an interest in the differences and interaction between people, the complexities of relationships, interpersonal politics and observable machinations.
At school I was achieving high grades in English, Maths, Art, the Sciences and the majority of additional curricula, with the notable exception being; anything sport orientated. I found the History of the Royal Family to be more arduous than interesting. While other children could reel off the order of generations, I was perplexed as to how they could do that. The same was true of the Times Table - something which I've never mastered.
I don't learn that way.
Billy Connelly, the comedien, once described it....
"I was the kid who knew the tune, but not the words."
Learning Maths was a problem with not knowing the times table off by heart, as all the other children seemed to.
(I was later amazed to find in High School that I was not only in the Top Set, but amongst the Top 5 - possibly this was because, unlike the majority of students, I demonstrated every calculation - I had to calculate each step as a result of not knowing the times table).
Any taught subject that involved the Teacher facing the blackboard whilst adding verbal comment in addition, to explain further what they had wrote, was difficult.
In effect, large portions of the specific area they were teaching were told, not written. While they faced a wall or board. In other words, while they turned away I couldn't see their faces. Could not rely on what I could hear, and audible components could be completely lost to me as a result of not being able to lip read. Although I could note emphasis by body language, as often this was a point when the Teacher would turn to the class and point while making additional comment.
I may have been trying to write this all down and watch both the teacher and associate what was said with what was written on the board (filling in gaps where possible) and note emphasis. If there was a long and detailed explanation provided with the written example, I could be left completely bewildered and confused, not to mention - none the wiser.
Suppose you're in a class, lecture, meeting room and the Teacher/Lecturer/Chair is writing or referring to something on a board or flip chart. They're looking at the board/chart and mostly have their back to their audience. Whilst writing or pointing, they're gesturing and talking. Saying 'something', 'anything'.
You may or may not have notes to accompany this.
Imagine you Hear the following:
Example:
"Theorem Proving in Higher-Order Logics (xxxOLs) is an xxxxxx inxxxxxtional academic conference on the topic of automated rxxxxxing in higher-order logics. The first TPHOLs was held in xxxxxxxxxxxx in 1xx7, but in the early years was an informal gathering of researchers interested in the HOL system and had no formal proceedings. Since 19x0 TPHOLs has published formal xxxxxxxxxxxxx proceedings, published by Springer's LNCS series.
TPHOLs brings together the communities using many xxxxxxx based on higher-order logic such as Coq, Isabelle, NuPRL, PVS, and Twelf. Individual xxxxxxxxxxxx meetings devoted to individual systems are usually xxxxxxxncurrently with the conference.
Together with CADE and TABLEAUX, TPHOLs is usually one of the three main xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe International xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxAutomated Reasoning (IJCAR) whenever it convenes,
In 2006, TPHOLs was part of the Federated Logic Conference (FLoC) held in Seattle, USA.
TPHOLs is superseded by the international conference on Interactive Theorem Proving (ITP), which combines the old TPHOLs with the xxxx Workshop series. The first ITP meeting was in 2010, held as part of FLoC in Edinburgh, Scotland.
In mathematics and logic, a higherxxxxxxxlogic is distinguished from first-order logic in a number of ways. One of these is the type of variables appearing in quantifications; in first-order logic, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, it is forbidden to quantifxxxxxxx predicates. See second-order logic for systems in which xxxxxxxxxxxmitted. Another way in which higher-order logic differs from first-order logic is in the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxg type theory. A higher-order predicate is a predicate that xxxxxx one or more other predicates xxxxxxuments. In general, a higher-order predicate of order n takes one or more predicates of order n − 1 as arguments, where n > 1. A similar remark holds for higher-order functions.
Higher-order logic, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxHOL, is also commonly used to mean higher order simple predicate logic, that is the underlying type theory is simple, not polymorphic or dependent.[1]
Higher-order logics are mxxxxxxxxxssive, but their properties, in particular with respect to model theory, make them less well-behaved for xxxxxxxxxxxxxxcations. By a result of Gödel, classical higher-order logic does not admit a (recursively axiomatized) sound and complete proof calculus; however, such a proof calculus does exist which is xxxxxxxxxxxxx complete with respect to Henkin models.
Examples of higher order logics include Church's Simple Theory of Types, Thierry Coquand's calculus of constructions, which allows for both dependent and polymorphic types, and of course HOL."
Imagine that's what You heard.
Did you read all of the example, or did you lose interest?
(A frequent complaint made by my teachers was that I was inclined to 'day-dream'. Given the above example, it should be obvious why).
Now the Teacher/Lecturer/Chair asks, whilst looking at their text book or notes, "Turn to page One hundred and xxxxxxxxxxx"
Remember, you're not supposed to talk
(If you're in any formal education setting - that means you'll be told off as a potential cheat if, at any time, you're spotted asking another student, "What did they say?").
Just Looking at another students desk could also be construed as cheating (another form of communicating).
So you'd have to be very careful if you were attempting to see what page in the text book They turn to.
There are a range of strategies that you'd automatically apply.
You may not have heard distinct words, but you'll have heard some sound. I would try to figure out what words those sounds were most likely to be in the context of the sentence.
In a face to face conversation, I could repeat what was said in a variety of ways for clarification/confirmation, and so avoid admitting I did not hear, or that I'm not sure of, everything that was said.
Underlying all of that is motive, and correspondingly, the judgement. In school/college/university etc, you're supposed to learn, failure to do so could be construed as bad teaching (but everyone else learnt), or evidence of your lack of intelligence.
You don't have to be a teacher to arrive at one of these conclusions. You don't have to be a Genius to spot implications, but it would probably help to overcome them.
Outside of school I was noted for being a particularly fast runner, though I never successfully accomplished a cartwheel or handstand. I was more competent than my peers in hoola-hooping, juggling, balance (walking the gate), skipping, and hand clapping games. When my legs had grown long enough to use my sisters bicycle, I was allowed to go out by myself and would explore the neighbourhoods further afield and the local countryside that lay beyond. In the 70s you could go and play out all day, as long as you weren't late for dinner.
