We are all self-educated, we learn through the example and with the assistance of those who come before us, but like consuming anything, we only retain what we seek through free will. School and education have become conflated, with the former institution being confused for the latter process. Learning can and does happen in school, but it is by no means a requirement.
Today, with the help of technology, information and learning resources are more accessible and affordable than at any point in history, and the breakdown of the traditional "gatekeeper" educational system is apparent and inevitable.
But this is not a new perspective, famous thinkers throughout history have understood that learning is an individual process, and internal one, not something that can be inflicted by educators. The following is a collection of such insights into this reality.
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school,”
- Albert Einstein
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
- Mark Twain
“Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing–the rest is mere sheep-herding.”
- Ezra Loomis Pound
“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.”
– Jim Rohn
“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.”
- Socrates
“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.”
-Carl Rogers
“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.”
– Isaac Asimov
“Just as eating against one’s will is injurious to health, so studying without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.”
– Leonardo Da Vinci
“The idea that the majority of students attend a university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a hypocrisy everyone is happier not to expose. Occasionally some students do arrive for an education but rote and mechanical nature of the institution soon converts them to a less idealic attitude”
- Robert M. Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintance
“Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money–in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.”
– Bel Kaufman
“The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.”
– William Dean Howells
“If you meet at dinner a man who has spent his life in educating himself – a rare type in our time … you rise from table richer, and conscious that a high ideal has for a moment touched and sanctified your days. But Oh! my dear Ernest, to sit next to a man who has spent his life in trying to educate others! What a dreadful experience that is!”
– Oscar Wilde
“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.”
– Anatole France
"For centuries it was never discovered that education was a function of the State, and the State never attempted to educate. But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power....When the revolutionary theory of government began to prevail, and Church and State found that they were educating for opposite ends and in a contradictory spirit, it became necessary to remove children entirely from the influence of religion."
-- Lord Acton
"As for money, the relationship between it and effective schools has been studied to death. The unanimous conclusion is that there is no connection between school funding and school performance."
-- Brookings Institution scholars John Chubb and Terry Moe, 1990
"As we all learned from the sorry experience of state-sanctioned bureaucracies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, decentralization is crucial to both freedom and excellence."
-- Mayor Jerry Brown, on why he opposes unionizing Oakland, California's charter schools.
"The more subsidized it is, the less free it is. What is known as `free education' is the least free of all, for it is a state-owned institution; it is socialized education _ just like socialized medicine or the socialized post office _ and cannot possibly be separated from political control."
-- Frank Chodorov, "Why Free Schools Are Not Free," 1948
"We are opposed to state interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringement of the fundamental Democratic doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government."
-- Democratic National Platform (1892)
"Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in nursery."
-- Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister
"If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies."
-- Milton Friedman - Economist. Awarded 1976 Nobel Prize in economics.
"In all countries, in all centuries, the primary reason for government to set up schools is to undermine the politically weak by convincing their children that the leaders are good and their policies are wise. The core is religious intolerance. The sides simply change between the Atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Unitarians, etc., depending whether you are talking about the Soviet Union, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, America, etc. A common second reason is to prepare the boys to go to war and the girls to cheer them on."
-- Marshall Fritz, founder of the Separation of School & State Alliance. Christian Education Symposium - Homeschool Christian.com on June 3, 1999.
"Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands, and perpetuate its institutions."
-- William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793).
"Men had better be without education than be educated by their rulers."
-- Thomas Hodgskin
"Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control."
-- Jack Hugh
"it is better to tolerate that rare instance of a parent's refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings by a forcible transportation and education of the infant against the will of his father."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; even forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind."
-- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The first goal and primary function of the U.S. public school is not to educate good people, but good citizens. It is the function which we call - in enemy nations - ‘state indoctrination'."
-- Jonathan Kozol (1990)
"Public educators, like Soviet farmers, lack any incentive to produce results, innovate, to be efficient, to make the kinds of of difficult changes that private firms operating in a competitive market must make to survive."
-- Carolyn Lochhead
"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality."
-- H.L. Mencken
"State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly alike one another, ...in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body."
-- John Stuart Mill (1859)
"Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of inward forces which make it a living thing."
-- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
"If it would be wrong for the government to adopt an official religion, then, for the same reasons, it would be wrong for the government to adopt official education policies. The moral case for freedom of religion stands or falls with that for freedom of education. A society that champions freedom of religion but at the same time countenances state regulation of education has a great deal of explaining to do."
-- James R. Otteson, professor of philosophy. - The Independent Review, Spring 2000, "Freedom of Religion and Public Schooling"
"Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you or pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?"
-- Isabel Paterson
"Those in society who are in charge of schools must never forget that the parents have been appointed by God himself as the first and principal educators of their children and that their right is completely inalienable."
-- Pope John Paul II
"It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody's role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy."
-- Albert Shanker - During his time as head of the American Federation of Teachers
"The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school."
-- George Bernard Shaw
"It is justice and not charity which the people need at the hands of government. Let government restore to them their land, and what other rights they have been robbed of, and they will then be able to pay for themselves, to pay their schoolmasters, as well as their parsons."
-- Gerrit Smith, abolitionist.
"...the mass of scholars who, ever mindful of tenure, promotion, grants, and that last infirmity of ignoble minds, respectability, never deviate from scholarly consensus."
--Joseph Sobran
"The search for the one best system has ill served the pluralistic character of American Society. Bureaucracy has often perpetuated positions and outworn practices rather than serving the clients, the children to be taught."
-- David Tyack (1974)
"The school is a political prize of the highest importance. It cannot be deprived of its political character as long as it remains a public and compulsory institution."
-- Ludwig von Mises, Austrian free-market economist.
"Certainly, some will oppose competition-just as AT&T once fought the breakup of its monopoly. Others will reflexively resist the redistribution of power to poor families. Still others will wave their worn-out ideologies to defend a system of educational apar-theid while demonizing anyone who promotes a parent's right to choose."
-- Andrew Young, Former UN Ambassador.
"We are still tolerating a public ed system that is run by adults for adults. Those charged with responsibility are more interested in their own jobs, their own turf, and how change affects them than the children the system is meant to serve . . . . I am bemused by the fact that in the late 1700s, when most people had little if any formal education, the citizenry was bombarded with broadsheets and pamphlets that dealt with complex and revolutionary political ideas and philosophies. And today, after decades of universal mass education, we have USA Today and the world in 30 minutes (if you count commercials)."
-- Ron Wolk, founding editor of Education Week, in a speech before the National Congress for Public Education
"We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause."
-- Horace Mann, father of common (government) school movement.
"The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense."
-- Karl Marx - Father of Communism (1848)
"At every hour of every day, I can tell you on which page of which book each school child in Italy is studying."
-- Benito Mussolini - Italian Fascist Dictator
"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances toward our Founding Fathers, toward his parents, toward belief in a supernatural being, toward sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity... It's up to you to make all these sick children well."
-- Chester Pierce - Harvard University Psychology professor.
"Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property. Let him be taught to love his family, but let him be taught at the same time that he must forsake and even forget them when the welfare of his country requires it."
-- Benjamin Rush, signer of Declaration of Independence
"When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
-- Albert Shanker, longtime American Federation of Teachers president
“I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”
― Ray Bradbury
“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read.”
― Frank Zappa
“No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.”
― G.K. Chesterton
“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”
― Beatrix Potter
“All I have learned, I learned from books.”
― Abraham Lincoln
“When you take the free will out of education, that turns it into schooling.”
― John Taylor Gatto
“The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil. It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he shall do. It is chosen and foreordained and he only holds the key to his own secret.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
“All the world is my school and all humanity is my teacher.”
― George Whitman
“Formal education makes you a living, self-education makes you a legend.”
― Habeeb Akande
“Take time to improve your knowledge and skills so that you can put a premium on yourself. You don't have to be content in being simply a good doer if you can also become a great teacher.”
― Jan Mckingley Hilado, Rich Real Radical: 40 Lessons from a Magna Cum Laude and a College Drop Out
“I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of daily life.”
― Michael Faraday
"Yes, I am. I’m completely library educated. I’ve never been to college. I went down to the library when I was in grade school in Waukegan, and in high school in Los Angeles, and spent long days every summer in the library. I used to steal magazines from a store on Genesee Street, in Waukegan, and read them and then steal them back on the racks again. That way I took the print off with my eyeballs and stayed honest. I didn’t want to be a permanent thief, and I was very careful to wash my hands before I read them. But with the library, it’s like catnip, I suppose: you begin to run in circles because there’s so much to look at and read. And it’s far more fun than going to school, simply because you make up your own list and you don’t have to listen to anyone. When I would see some of the books my kids were forced to bring home and read by some of their teachers, and were graded on—well, what if you don’t like those books?
I am a librarian. I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library. Before I fell in love with libraries, I was just a six-year-old boy. The library fueled all of my curiosities, from dinosaurs to ancient Egypt. When I graduated from high school in 1938, I began going to the library three nights a week. I did this every week for almost ten years and finally, in 1947, around the time I got married, I figured I was done. So I graduated from the library when I was twenty-seven. I discovered that the library is the real school.”
― Ray Bradbury
“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.”
- Morris Adler
“We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.” ~ Lloyd Alexander
“Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith.”
- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
“What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.”
- Aristotle
“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”
- Clay P. Bedford
“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”
- Buddha
“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can – there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.”
- Sarah Caldwell
“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.”
- Chinese Proverb
“Learning is not compulsory… neither is survival.”
-W. Edwards Deming
“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
- Albert Einstein
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
“We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.”
- Malcolm Gladwell from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, 2007.
“What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers.”
- Martina Horner, President of Radcliffe College
“Whoever ceases to be a student has never been a student.”
- George Iles
“I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma.”
- Eartha Kitt
“You learn something every day if you pay attention.”
- Ray LeBlond
“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”
- C.S. Lewis
“Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”
- Theodore Roosevelt
“The wisest mind has something yet to learn.”
- George Santayana
“All men who have turned out worth anything has had the chief hand in their own education.”
- Sir Walter Scott
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
- Alvin Toffler
“Through the power of self-education you can be anything you want to be or do anything you want to do. Self-education power does not require money, fixed time or fixed life style. Options are extremely flexible. Rewards are unlimited. You can control your destiny.”
- Bob Webb
“Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.”
- Eugene S. Wilson
I used to be really insecure about my self-education. I'm definitely always learning. But there's many ways to learn. There are many, many ways to always be a learner.
- Maggie Grace
Traveling is my form of self-education. Every stream I fish now is not as good as it used to be. Traveling is my form of self-education. Every stream I fish now is not as good as it used to be. If you keep your eyes open as you travel around, you realize we are destroying this planet.
- Yvon Chouinard
“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.”
- B. B. King
“Actually, all education is self-education. A teacher is only a guide, to point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you education. What you receive is like the outlines in a child’s coloring book. You must fill in the colors yourself.”
- Louis L'Amour
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts…it is to teach them to think.”
- Robert M. Hutchins
"Don't just teach your children to read…Teach them to question what they read.Teach them to question everything."
- George Carlin
"Don't just teach your children to read…Teach them to question what they read.Teach them to question everything."
- George Carlin
No comments:
Post a Comment