Connections and Connecting

I've noticed the most disturbing thing about my little brother...he has nothing for connections...well, maybe that's an exaggeration...he can make a few connections, but for the most part, everything seems all new. He's learning about plants in his Biology. He was reading about stems. When he read "stems have a terminal bud at the tip" or something similar, he has no knowledge of twigs to attach the information to, and it just flows through his head and out the other side. He was beginning "Silas Marner" Wednesday, and Mom had him read the encyclopedia entry for George Eliot...he had to read it four times before he knew that George Eliot was a woman. I'm not sure that he ever figured it out himself...mom may have finally told him, but he told me the next day, so somehow he finally knew it. I'm not sure what happened...perhaps it's the endless textbook; spoon-feeding bits of information that caused it. "Education is to be gotten in the classroom and from the textbook in order to be 'real'." Uh yeah.