A reader has challenged me to write about education. I said I was not the most obvious person to do so, since I don't have any!
At least not a formal one. I didn't finish 12th grade, and I have never seen the inside of a university. (Do they really have all that mahogany?)
Yet I have an excellent life, financially and spiritually.
I won't say formal education is worthless. It is very valuable for a traditional life and craft. For learning how to be a dentist or an engineer, you won't get around it, so far as I know.
At the same time it is a fact that a very high percentage of the very most successful people in the world did not get a formal education. This is because to be successful takes education, but the kind of spirit and persistence it takes to be uniquely successful is not something anybody can teach you. At least not somebody who works in the education system. The same goes for achieving original and groundbreaking ideas and executing them. As a matter of fact, if there is a big downside to formal education, it is that it tends to kill originality by its very nature. (It can only teach you how others are doing things.)
I think I can say one thing for sure: your most important education is the one you give yourself.
You should be reading at least three books at once at any time: one on how to improve your craft. One on a craft or area you would like to go into. And one which talks about your relationship with the universe and beyond.
Good post Eolake!
ReplyDeleteI have an Honours Degree in Fine Art, and was offered the chance to do an MA at the end of the Degree course, which I declined.
I had already realised that I needed to escape back into the real world.
My Degree course opened my eyes to possibilities, but that was really all I think. It gave me a grounding in skills, but I always say that I learned more after I had left, and was out in the real world.
I think we may have went too far in the UK in pushing the concept of formal education, to the detriment of the old apprenticeships, which were probably more valuable.
Everyone wants a bit of paper, proof that they did a course.
I have personally never needed my bit of paper...I don`t even know where it is anymore..! It`s been many years since I last saw it, in at the back of a drawer somewhere.
When I left college, no-one ever asked to see it, they wanted to know if I could do the job well, and the bit of paper was useless for that!
Having to survive in the real world has taught me far more about my personal subject than I ever learned at college.
I love your thoughts on this post, Eolake, and completely agree on all counts!
Good post!
Thank you kindly. :)
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who says that university battered his joy of reading to a degree that it took over ten years before he really started doing it again. Now that seems far below ideal!
(OK, those were my words. I think he said: "I did so much reading in university that I don't feel like doing it anymore.")
Reading is a joy....it can encourage you to research further into areas of interest, or transport you to other worlds in your imagination.
ReplyDeleteBut, reading text books, or "recommended reading" can sometimes stifle the desire to see or need the printed word.
I was fortunate, my mother bought books for us on every available opportunity, birthdays, Xmas, easter, holidays....you name it, ...there was always a new book....!!!
I could read and write before I went to primary school....something my teachers there made me suffer for...!!!
But, there`s nothing like being a rebel, that`s what reading and knowledge give us, if we are very lucky,.... independant thought!
The last passage was excellent and is something that I have started doing in the recent past.
ReplyDeleteIt does do wonders. Good Post!!