JACK'S BLOG
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Oh Dark ThirtySchools and teachers tried their best to destroy my love of learning. It seems that the love of learning is innate in every child. We mimic virtually everything we see and hear others doing. However, it isn't long before our families begin putting restraints on us, forbidding us to imitate only them and certain specified members of the community. Then, when we reach school, teachers begin substituting their judgment of who we should emulate. Never has this been clearer than today. Ever since teachers banded together and adopted an ideology, they have been hell bent on substituting indoctrination for education. Is it any wonder that employers aren't happy with the lack of skills evinced by graduates? Or that students are failing their tests? In fact, teachers and schools that attempt to educate are castigated and ostracized. I am fortunate that the primary authority figure in my life, my father, was abusive. He taught me that all authority figures were suspect and, thus, I was able to resist the negative influences of the teachers in my life. I selected my own mentors and sought out my own authorities questioning everyone of them, testing their premises, and dismissing anything that was inconsistent with observable facts. Thus, I became an autodidact, a self-taught individual. It's a hard life, living as an autodidact, unable to trust anyone until they prove themselves. It's a lonely life, but a rewarding one. I only wish I had known that when I started. I was plagued with self-doubt and feared failure at every turn. After all, who was I to set my judgment above that of others? The answer didn't become obvious until much later in life when I looked back and reflected on the balance sheet of my successes and failures. Yes, it's been a good life, full of adventure and learning. An autodidact never stops learning and learning is an adventure. Isn't it sad that so many are dissuaded from it?
2 Comments
8/15/2013 11:44:19 pm
Learning because we want to is a lot more exciting than learning because we have to. In College, someone picked the subject and the teacher for me. Now I pick my own.
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Jack Durish
8/16/2013 03:18:15 am
As Louis L'Amour said, school got in the way of my education. Unfortunately, I didn't have as much sense as he did and I hung around to the bitter end.
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