A collection of methods, ranging from the sorta-ordinary to the unorthodox, of learning via direct experience. A couple weeks ago, I published part one of this essay, in which I considered Arthur Schopenhauer’s ideas of “natural” versus “artificial” education. I summarized Schopenhauer’s contrasting concepts of education as follows: “So Schopenhauer opens the essay by asserting that [...]
“Instead of developing the child’s own faculties of discernment, and teaching it to judge and think for itself, the teacher uses all his energies to stuff its head full of the ready-made thoughts of other people.” Arthur Schopenhauer, if you’re unfamiliar, was a 19th-century German philosopher and a rather cantankerous pessimist. He basically hated Hegel, his contemporary, [...]
“Knowledge emerges only through . . . the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” Paulo Freire A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay that decried the inadequacies of our mass education systems and made a case for an autodidactic approach to learning. In that [...]
“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” ― Isaac Asimov I was always an “outstanding” student. I earned top grades throughout my high school and university education, pulverized standardized tests, was a National Merit Scholar, and went to college on a cushy full-ride academic scholarship. I was diligent, clever, and dead-set [...]