Is self education on the rise? Is it necessary for young people to educate themselves outside of the school system?

My Son’s Fiance, just sent me a link to an article her Sister wrote in collaboration with a couple of her journalism classmates. Their story, MakerCulture: Edupunks of the world unite!, is all about the growing trend to self education.

“The word is EduPunk and it sums up the need for educational reform — reform that, to some extent, has already begun.” “What does that mean? It means people are coming up with their own ways of educating themselves. Ways that don’t include conventional tools, but rather new devices”

Self learning, and what I perceive as a failure of the educational system, has been close to my heart since high school. I can honestly say that I largely educated myself. I took the onus upon myself because the school system as it was in my day, could not address my particular areas of interest and aptitude, early enough in the process.

High school for me then, was a boring and unnecessarily long-winded preamble. I got so fed up with it that I quit 3 months prior to graduation.

The trouble with my self education though, was that I was a troubled young man. I was troubled because I didn’t feel welcomed or nourished in the school system. That feeling of alienation seriously hampered my efforts. As I look back I see that I could have, and should have, done things differently, but at the time, it was what it was.

Gifted but flawed

I was seriously at odds with the educational system, and especially with the principal and vice-principal of my high school. In their eyes I was a perhaps-gifted, but-definitely-flawed student. They suspected that I might have some intelligence, albeit of an unusual sort, but since my aptitudes seemed to be outside of, beyond, or at odds with the curriculum, they neatly brushed me aside. Despite repeated attempts to articulate how I felt and how they could improve the situation for students like myself, I was completely ignored–until the school administered IQ tests.

Suddenly everyone seemed to have an interest in me as if that number magically changed me somehow. The test results were supposed to be kept private, and I preferred that. I had zero interest in knowing my score. The academically elite students though were quick to let me know that I had achieved, not just a decent score, but high enough to inspire them to intervene in my seemingly dysfunctional life.

Several of the brightest students stopped me in the hallways or on the street just to let me know that I had no idea of how smart I was; that I was wasting my life; that I could be doing so much more. I recall one student who was so upset that he stopped me on the way to school and shouted at me for misusing what he called a valuable resource of mind and talent. I angrily replied that I did not need an number from an IQ test to tell me how smart I am, or a school system geared to mediocrity to tell me how to express that intelligence.

Of course, they were right: I WAS wasting my time, and I was angry about it.

I was angry that it took an IQ score to be noticed and valued. I was angry that this new-found recognition came so late in the game. And I was angry that there was no system in place to probe a student’s individual and creative potential.

If that student wasn’t on the group-think page, they were psychologically and academically banished. Perhaps it has changed now; I am speaking of my experience in the 60′s. I don’t know, but I suspect that the drive to maintain a comfortable and exclusive middle road of mediocrity is alive and well in the human psyche, and in the school system.

Students who can offer deep value to society are too often excluded from the usual categories of commercially accepted aptitudes, simply because they are somewhat different. They are bright stars with nowhere to shine. What can be sadder than that?

Is it the school’s fault? Is the student to blame? I’d say it is a bit of each. Ultimately, life is our own responsibility, but it would be much easier for students to excel if the school system was geared to recognize and encourage a student’s individual directions and aptitudes–especially when they appear to be uninterested.

Educational reform is calling

So I am totally in favor of self-education, and it isn’t just about saving the cost of tuition, or convenience. It is simply because, sometimes, the only way to advance is to take matters into your own hands.

Educating yourself though can easily become unstructured and unproductive. It might work well for a university-level student, but what happens to the grade-school or junior-high student who finds himself in an educational vacuum?

There are countless children and older students who, as I experienced, do not fit into the categories served by the educational system. They may be few in numbers relative to the whole. They may be different; a bit odd and not easily understood. But they offer a potential value to society that is leveraged up by their difference, and they can only make good on their promise if they are recognized, inspired, and challenged.

If a school system cannot meet the needs of its students; if students are so hungry for learning that they seek it elsewhere the moment they are old enough to do so, and if this desire for self education is becoming a growing trend as the article states–then perhaps the whole system should be rebuilt from the ground up.

An educational system that sets its sights on average and fails to encourage the exceptional, is unacceptable. Perhaps the EduPunk movement will catalyze some needed change.

What do you think?

Life is… let me think a minute… alright then, here’s a picture for you: life is a ball of tangled elastic bands with something really special buried deep inside. The lure is to find the hidden treasure.

Life is like that; full of intriguing discoveries. Like those cereal boxes when I was a kid with the baking-soda-powered toy SUBMARINE–FREE INSIDE. It was a hook, and who could resist?

Back to the ball of elastic bands though: when I was a small boy I wondered why golf balls bounced so high. My Dad was a golfer, so I took one of his golf balls and dissected it to find out why. I was exhilarated as I cut through the casing; like I was splitting the atom or something. What would happen? Would it explode in my face? The energy of that ball had to be locked in there somewhere, and I was about to release it.

After removing the outer shell, I found that it was a a ball of tightly wrapped elastic bands. No explosion or drama. But wrapped around what? I imagined there had to be something at the center of that ball, so I kept unwrapping the long thin strings of elastic. I recall the odor of it to this day; a pungent to the extreme, smell of rubber. I sat entranced as I unwound the ball to the core of the mystery-of-the-incredible-bounce. And what did I find? I found a round sack filled with a viscous liquid. Totally unexpected and unexplainable to me as a child. A fluid of unknown source was at the core of this golf ball that could bounce so high. But why?

Like my childhood curiosity, we are all born with an insatiable desire to seek out the mystery hidden just beneath the surface of the ordinary. It is how we have survived as a species. It has helped us to find food, shelter, and comfort.

Our challenge has always been to unravel the tangle to get to the treasure. But as conscious adults in the twenty-first century, the treasure we are able to seek is more than survival, and more than a trinket.

Four things about life that I am sure of

There are countless things that I do not know about life. It–thank goodness–is still largely a mystery. But here are a few things that I know for certain:

1. We are all seekers. Our human nature drives us to explore life. We have no choice in this. We are explorers by nature. That sounds like a contradiction doesn’t it? How can we be driven and yet be free? But in the mix of those opposites there is an electricity that empowers us.
2. We are easily distracted. We often mistake the wrapping for the treasure. We sense the inner reward. We are drawn by it. But we become enamored by the snap and bounce of the web we must unravel in the process, and we lose sight of the prize we are after. We are encoded with a destination and an imperative to get there, but with no clear directions we get lost in the tangents of our curiosities.
3. We are all on a path to enlightenment. Our natural compulsion to seek answers, to unravel the mechanics of our world, is actually our natural drive to understand all of life; to see the mysteries beyond the surface–to become enlightened and released from judgments, and definitions, and fixed conceptions. We are on a path to unconditional awareness.
4. It all begins and ends with simplicity. The childlike curiosity that cannot resist unraveling the golf ball to find its center, or digging into the cereal box to find the hidden prize inside, is the juice that drives us to greater and greater discoveries as adults. That simple seeking holds tremendous beauty and power. It is our means to discovery. The treasure at the center of the tangle of life, is the beauty and power that resides within ourselves.

So that is what I know for certain. What are some of the things about life that YOU know for sure?

Over to you now.

Seduction is a big part of life for us mortals.

Seduction is in our genes. We’re programmed to seek satisfaction but when we talk about satisfying our seductive desires, most of us automatically think of sexual seduction.

And sexual seduction is powerful stuff for sure. Is there anyone out there who has not fallen under the intoxicating spell of some god or goddess who has targeted us in their sexual sights?

But sexual gratification is not seduction’s main target. Believe it or not, we mostly seduce ourselves and it has nothing to do with sex.

Why do we Seduce Ourselves?

We seduce ourselves because we can, and because we get instant gratification from it. Us humans have more choices than say, squirrels, because we are more intelligent than squirrels, but it seems that we haven’t learned to choose wisely.

Instead, we are probably the most gullible creature on the planet. We will believe almost any promise of satisfaction — completely ignoring the price we must pay for it — as long as it satisfies our immediate desires. To that end, we often transform our world view into a short-sighted, slick and slippery slope; a temporary place that works for us only as long as we keep finding new ground to stand on, and new desires to quench.

It doesn’t sound like there is much of a future in that does it? You would think we’d get the message, but apart from being gullible, we are also tenacious. We just hate to give up what seems to be the path of least resistance.

How to Seduce Yourself

Here then are my top 10 ways to seduce yourself:

1. It’s not your fault: Laying blame is too judgemental. Abdicate ownership of your circumstances and they’ll improve by themselves.
2. There’s plenty of time: Sure it’s important, but it can wait. It’ll still be here tomorrow and so will you.
3. You don’t need to say “I love you:” They already know it.
4. You’re better than them: Most people can’t see how wonderful you are because they are not capable of it. Don’t waste your time on them.
5. You never have to say you’re sorry: Apologizing for hurting someone only aggravates the wound. Let sleeping dogs lie; they will soon forget.
6. Happiness can wait: There’s money to be made. The more money you make today, the happier you’ll be tomorrow.
7. The simple life is for simple people: You are capable of more than that. Get as much as you can, as fast as you can. The more you acquire, the better you’ll feel.
8. You don’t have to be happy at your job: You just have to be good at it so that you can progress — into more of the same.
9. Your relationship is just fine: Power games and emotional manipulation are perfectly normal and healthy.
10. Don’t listen to that small voice within: It doesn’t know what it is talking about. It’s just your false sense of guilt trying to sabotage you.

Now, I know that I have seduced and deceived myself in so many more ways than this, but this is all I can think of right now. Perhaps I am trying to forget the rest. After all, they aren’t really that important are they ?

Over to you now!

A misty sundown drifts into your senses on salt air. You ride on this soft breeze into another, gentler life. The wet firm sand of the ocean’s edge caresses your toes as you walk along the shore. You see a small flower; a wonder of nature; so beautiful. It grows between some rocks and it makes you happy just to see it.

You walk further through the cleansing ocean air. You see a beautiful woman, or a beautiful man. You are in awe of everything. Your heart swells and you say to yourself, “this moment is beauty; life is beauty; I am beauty.”

And it is true. You are beauty. There is no other way you can recognize and feel this, unless you have this beauty within you also.

Nature is like that. You cannot identify and appreciate anything outside of yourself that does not also exist within you. How can you possibly know what beauty is, unless you have this inner beauty as a reference?

The truth is inescapable.

You are beautiful

What a wonderful discovery this is, to know that you are beautiful.

But you might be thinking, “What the heck is this guy talking about?” “What does this have to do with my life?”

Well, it has everything to do with your life. I am talking about the best that is within you. Sometimes though, our best is blocked by poor self concepts brought on by depression, or health issues that result in chronic pain such as fibromyalgia for instance. From my own experience with chronic pain, I can tell you that it can erode the quality of your life. Your health determines the beauty of your vision.

Fortunately we have resources that offer effective strategies for optimizing our health and mental well-being. Take action to improve your basic health and you will soon uncover the beauty within you — but only if you choose it. Do you choose a beautiful life?

You could of course ignore your body’s signals and choose by default — without even knowing it was a choice — to exclude beauty from your vision. That walk along the ocean would then only sting your nostrils with the foul smell of kelp and rotting fish, punctuated with the annoying screech of scavenging seagulls.

Your vision can just as easily throw you into an ugly life, as it can render your life a thing of beauty.

It is up to you to determine how your life will look, and how it will feel to you. And it helps to know from the beginning — that you are beautiful.

Why do you deny your inner beauty?

Do you renounce your beauty as a human being because you are ashamed of owning it? Do you feel guilt over your ability to see and feel depravity, ugliness, and aggression? Do you feel this lessens your beauty?

But you cannot diminish or obliterate beauty. Beauty is intrinsic to the order of existence. When you move in accord with that order, you see beauty in everything because that is the nature of life. When you are at odds with yourself and with life, you see and live a lack of beauty and order. You are outside of nature’s loop.

Despite its pull on your mind, ugliness and depravity is not within you. Power is within you, and you will empower whatever you set before your mind’s eye. If you focus on the truth of life — the beauty and the order — you can work wonders and become a genuinely successful human being.

If you do not own this inner beauty of yours and take action to uncover it, you will empower its lack, and you will move further away from your nature into poor mental and physical health until only mind and impulse remains, devoid of true spirit.

Choose wisely then.

Acknowledge the beauty within you

If you do nothing else of significance today, please make room in your mind, and in your heart, for some beauty. It is all around you today and every day. Look with an open heart and you will find it.

Know that every time you see and feel beauty in the world, you are seeing and feeling a representation of the immense beauty that resides in your soul — a reflection of the beauty within you.

You are truly beautiful.

Over to you now…

Empowerment takes courage. It is difficult to be yourself in a world that shouts the personal power message, but really just wants to sell you something.

What is empowerment anyway? How do you find it? Does paying a thousand dollars for a one day workshop empower you, or does it just demonstrate the depth of your dependence on others?

Building self confidence and personal power is an especially tough task, because you must make empowered decisions on how to be yourself, from a weakened living-for-others perspective.

It is a classic example of trying to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. That is why you seek guidance to empower yourself.

But…

Help is a double edged sword

You must be careful how you use outside help such as workshops and seminars. Your dependence on them can negate any value they offer.

The true teacher teaches you how to do without them. There is no thought of keeping you under their influence. The only outside help you should seek then, is that which triggers your personal power without hidden agendas.

Motivational seminars that artificially and temporarily boost your self confidence, only serve to disappoint when you come down from the high. For some people these seminars are like drugs. And for some seminar facilitators, that is exactly what they intend. The onus is fully upon you to discriminate wisely; not an easy task considering the marketing prowess of some of these seminar operators.

Self empowerment

There is another way to empowerment though. Despite the impossibility projected by the bootstrap argument, it is possible to achieve self-empowerment. That is, to empower yourself to be yourself, without overly depending on outside help.

Courage and a small leap of faith are key ingredients in the formula for self empowerment. Without a measure of courage you cannot proceed into the unknown, and without some faith in yourself you would have no reason to exercise courage in the first place. Courage and faith then make good partners.

What specifically will you base this faith upon? Well, even in your weakest moments you retain traces of self belief. Despite how you feel, you know that you have the potential to reach your goals. This knowledge is what motivates you to seek solutions, and it can be the springboard for your leap of faith.

Of course, it is easy to say we have potential. Using it is quite another matter is it not? Acting on your potential takes courage. Courage then is the fuel that will power your leap into yourself — into your personal empowerment.

The formula for self empowerment then is: faith or self-belief + the courage to take action = empowerment.

Finding the power to help yourself

But how do you find the power to help yourself when a lack of personal power is the problem you are trying to overcome?

One way is to begin by reasoning with yourself that you have potential. If you accept that fact, then you must accept that this power of potential is within you, and therefore you do have power, albeit temporarily out of reach. Do you agree with that reasoning? I hope so.

So now that you recognize you have personal power, your task is to identify it, access, and use it.

What are the things that make you special? Identify them by asking questions of yourself, then sink into them and become them. You are not your recent response to circumstance. Circumstance is like the weather; it comes; it goes; it passes over and influences how you proceed, but that is all. You continue on your journey regardless. Your special and finer qualities are the only true constant.

Your journey through life is empowered when it is purposeful and proper. And your proper purpose in life is found in the things that make you unique; the qualities that you know you have, but have lacked the courage or determination to act upon.

It is not a great task to identify these special qualities. Most people already know what they are. The difficult part of empowerment is developing the courage to take real and meaningful action using your finer qualities. But this is precisely where the power is — having the courage to take action.

One small action on another, properly directed, will dramatically change your life if you just keep doing it. Action speaks loudest in this world. You will become whatever you do, and you can do it a bit at a time.

To discover yourself; to be yourself; to be the finest person that it is in your nature to be, is true courage — and true empowerment.

Over to you now…