Heritage is a multi-faceted topic that seems to come up constantly. Having overcome the yearly celebrations it seemed to tie in with what I am faced with on a daily basis in my classes. Recently while taking a class of aspirant dancers my mind started to dwell along the paths of genetic inheritance from a physical and mental aspect and coupling it with what we inherit culturally.
When you work with a dancer you have to understand how each individual body has been designed, what needs to be changed and adapted in pursuit of a ballet technique and what cannot be changed without rendering the body structurally unsound for the intended purpose.
But what has always intrigued me is how people learn. I am not only talking about whether the preferred learning is visual or oral. A lot seems to depend on what work or training the parents have. Nature versus nurture I think of as nature and nurture. As one gets to know more about families’ belief systems and way of coping with life one sees a pattern of behaviour emerging even in very young children. Whether this is simply from observation, or as I am beginning to suspect, comes from the way our brains are wired and that we inherit a thought processing attitude that impacts on the way we learn. One appears to be able to pass on skill sets through the ages through genetics.
You can train people to learn and to think and solve problems but some are so much better than others even at a very young age that it cannot simply be nurture alone. Personalities seem to be imbedded at birth and are developed in the growing process but that core of personality does not seem to change. It will probably become more polished with a few corners rubbed off by life but that individual make-up will not change.
I would like to hear what thoughts other readers might have on this subject.