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SELF-UNIVERSITY: Introduction “I haven’t been educated,” people will say, as if the process were something that is done to them, rather than something in which they actively participated. Or they say, “I haven’t got a good education,” as if it were a commodity that must be purchased. I assert that both these modes of thought are erroneous, even damaging to our society. I am convinced that there exists no method superior to self-education for accomplishing one’s goals, whatever they may be. The reason for this is simple: When you control your own education, you also control your own destiny. And the only tuition is desire. A person need not be apologetic about any lack of “formal” credential, because what’s possible through self-education can be so much better. Throughout history some of the greatest contributions to mankind have been made by people who educated themselves. Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, was self-educated. He had little more than one year of formal schooling. Herbert Spencer, one of the most famous philosophers of the nineteenth century, remained an uneducated man until the age of forty, at which time he educated himself. Thomas A. Edison, technological genius and holder of over a thousand patents, had only three months of formal schooling. R. Buckminster Fuller, philosopher, engineer, architect, inventor, and poet, clearly one of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century, never completed his formal education. In Critical Path, the late Buckminster fuller wrote: I am certain that none of the world’s problems—which we are all perforce thinking about today—have any hope of solution except through total democratic society’s becoming thoroughly and comprehensively self-educated. Only thereby will society be able to identify and intercommunicate the vital problems of total world society. Only thereafter may humanity effectively sort out and put those problems into order of importance for solution in respect to the most fundamental principles governing humanity’s survival and enjoyment of life on Earth. Much has been learned in this century about the learning process, but little of this knowledge has been used. For years, educators have known that students have individual learning styles, that they assimilate information differently according to perception and method. Educators have known for decades that people require varying amounts of time to learn, and that this time has nothing whatsoever to do with hourly classes, semesters, eight years of primary school, four years of high school, or four years of college. Self-education takes place when the learner perceives a need. In the absence of a felt need we are likely to perceive new information as being irrelevant or as arbitrarily forced upon us, in which case we subliminally categorize it as forgettable. And yet, in spite of this fact today’s system of formal education is designated to discredit the autodidact—a self-educated person. When I refer to someone in the context of this book as self-educated, I mean a person who has pursued his or her education outside the traditional educational system, but this is not a complete definition. I assert that a person becomes an autodidact when he assumes total responsibility for his own learning and the primary drive to know comes from within and not as a result on others’ expectations I consider all the people quoted in this text, as well as those who work inspired it, to be self-educated, regardless of their educational credentials. Self-education neither depends on, nor is necessarily hindered by, traditional education. (I have tried to address the problem of gender and awkward language as fairly as I know how without butchering sentences. When I have used he to mean that person or a certain person, or mankind to represent the human race, I have done so only for the sake of sound and clarity and not with gender bias.) Self-education is a purposeful endeavor in which we are aware of the perceptual process and its effect on our judgment. We discipline ourselves to favor objectivity regardless of the nature of inquiry, especially when the answers we seek reveal results with which we are uncomfortable. Self-education is a perpetual process in which a left step of self-discovery leads to a right step in self-knowledge, which in turn leads to further self-discovery and more self-knowledge. As we gain momentum we become empowered with the ability to positively affect our environment, and at that point we are capable of self-determination. Self-University Core Curriculum Questions Each of us is unique in our acquisit8on of knowledge and our need to learn. Self-education is person-centered education. Subject matter assumes fluid, non-hierarchical relationships that are forever in a state of flux. Imagine the subheadings in this book as being in constant motion, changing pages and chapters at random, while never appearing in quite the same context more than once. If you keep this in mind as you review the following core curriculum questions, you will gain a sense of the definition of self-education as it is used in this book. These questions are fashioned by my own interests. As you proceed through this book, you may want to replace them with your own. · How has my experience with traditional education influenced my attitude about learning? · How do I define reality? Do I see things as they are or as I want them to be? · Do I understand how I relate to authority? · Are my values affected by the advertising industry? · How well do I know myself? Is my self-knowledge adequate for a full life? · Do my attitudes abut intelligence, creativity, genius, expertise and the way I use my memory affect my self-image? · Do I know how the major theories of human nature square with my own experience? · Am I aware of my philosophy of life? · What are the duties an obligation of citizenship in the United State of America? · Do I understand the management philosophy at my place of work either as a manager or as an employee? · Do I understand the nature of credentialism in America? · Should I go back to school? Why? · Do I really know what I want to do with my life? · Do I understand the dynamics of competition and cooperation? · Do I understand other cultures? Do I need to? · Does busyness always constitute value? · Am I ready for the future? A major theme here is that traditional “passive” education, designed to be concluded when we are young adults, is inadequate. Not only is it insufficient for solving today’s problems, but it is a dangerous way to embrace the future. Unfortunately, for many people the process of formal education has been a source of learned limitation. The mission of Self-University is simple: To empower you with confidence, conviction and desire to create your own Self-University. It is possible to document and prove the learning you have attained through “nontraditional” methods, both what you have already earned and that which you gain as you go. These personal credentials can aid you in getting the promotion you want, changing careers, or simply enhancing your own quality of life as a human being. It is my belief that self-education through self-directed inquiry is a natural way to gain control over your life. Self-education leads to self-empowerment. Self-empowerment is the ability to provide your won definition of success, thereby allowing you to know when you have reached your goal and have become a “graduate student” of Self-University. My intent is to demonstrate that: · A formal education tends to ignore that which is most important to us: the development of self-knowledge. · The study of media is necessary in order to understand ourselves. · Self-knowledge is an anchor necessary for social equilibrium. · Self-directed inquiry is one of the greatest empowering principles there is. · A liberal education is no longer a luxury, but is in fact a necessity for ourselves as individuals as well as a nation. · A person can be an expert without academic credentials. · The satisfaction derived from self-directed inquiry can be one of the most exhilarating experiences of being human. · The means to an education superior to the college experience is possible in half the time and at a fraction of the cost. · Average people can and should be come intellectuals, since the survival of democracy may depend on it. Though we have each had different experiences, most of us who are adults today endured a passive education in the sense that we were told what to study. Not only were we supplied with answers, but, even more importantly, we were also given the questions. Since we did not formulate the questions, the exercises often had little meaning. Aside from the process of socialization, the greatest lesson we learned was that of “conformity.” We learned how to be instructed, where to stand, where to sit, what to think, and when to talk. We learned that the invitation to ask questions, though sincere by a few teachers, was not in the long term to be taken seriously. We learned to accept authority without question. The tragedy of the educational experience in America is that new knowledge about learning is simply not being applied as it comes to light. When pioneers in the aviation industry made new discoveries in aerodynamics, for example, they used the knowledge to make better airplanes. The result was that man has been to the moon and back. By contrast, when educators make new discoveries about learning they seem unable to penetrate the monolithic bureaucracy of the educational system. The result is more of the same. No change Futurists and economists assert that technology and shifts in world economic developments are rapidly changing the structure of American society. We are becoming a “Knowledge society.” The experience is having profound effects on the way we live and work. In a knowledge society education is a “capital” investment. In a knowledge society critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and innovation are prerequisites for participation regardless of how a person defines success. In Critical Path, Buckminster Fuller suggested that we have the technological capability to live as a planet of four billion “billionaires.” I would argue that, if we had achieved only twenty percent as much progress during the past two hundred years in education as we have in technology, today we would be a planet of four billion intellectuals. I think that Mr. Fuller would probably have agreed that intellectual development on a massive scale is a prerequisite to billionaire status for the average citizen. Educated people demand accountability and equitable treatment. Poor, uneducated citizens are unable to articulate their needs and are therefore not taken seriously. Education is a much a requisite for citizenship as it is a means of earning a living. Instead of using the educational process as a primary means of qualifying for jobs, we must be sure that we are educated to the extent that we know which jobs should be performed. We are on the cusp of a technological revolution that promises to incrementally eliminate the drudgery of work and exponentially produce products that enhance the quality of human life. A potential for achieving the greatest quality of life in human history is counterbalanced with the opportunity for catastrophe. Paradoxically, the edict of “severe consequences” in which the harshness with which actions are dealt has come full circle. For example, in primitive tribal communities an argument between two individuals that led to a minor physical injury might have meant the ultimate death of the injured party. But the process of civilization has all but eliminated the risk of death from minor injuries. Today however, a small misunderstanding between countries could conceivably lead to the destruction of all human life. The price for citizenship and protection of democracy in such a rapidly changing world is that we must develop our minds or increase the likelihood that humanity will perish. This book consists of four parts. Part One discusses why we are the way we are: Why the way we are taught affects how we behave, how media affects our lives (often without our ability to detach its influence), and how our attitudes about such attributes as intelligence, creativity, genius and expertise affect our attitudes about ourselves and our abilities. Part Two discusses the personal sciences an the people sciences including theories of human behavior, motivation, life stages, the search for meaning, sociology, politics, management and a range of topics associated with being human. Part Three discuss the difficulties of credentialism: how credentialism restricts opportunity and often protects incompetent practitioners instead of the consumer whom it is supposed to protect; how the credentialing process exacerbates the difficulty of finding employment for which we are suited. Part Three also examines the possibilities of tomorrow, the humanization of technology and how our attitudes about the future will, in fact, shape the future. Part Four offers practical advice ranging from understanding personality theories and improving your memory to creating your own credentials and deciding whether or not you should go back to school. Because this book is the result of my own self-education, it is heavily biased and highly opinionated in favor of my own study and experience. I have no formal credentials, but the fact has not stopped me from being successful or from creating my own Self-University. I challenge you to not accept my ideas without argument, but to create your own Self-University so that we may agree or, if I am wrong, you might have the opportunity to change my mind. |