The Unschooled. Does an education matter?

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/111376/the-unschooled

by rblion • 14 years ago

2 2 14 years ago

rblion• 14 years ago

"Entrepreneurship is not a full human education, and living is never just succeeding, and the humanities are always pertinent. In pain or in sorrow, who needs a quant? There are enormities of experience, horrors, crimes, disasters, tragedies, which revive the appetite for wisdom, and for the old sources, however imprecise, of wisdom—a massacre of schoolchildren, for example."

I used to think that school/college was just an assembly line. You enter as a child and are filled with facts and formula until you are a productive member of society. Boy was I wrong. School is about forming relationships, exploring your interests, and developing an identity. I did well in k-12 without applying myself and being the class clown, so I never took the whole institution too seriously. However, after dropping out of college to start a company, which didn't go as I thought it would, I realized a few more semesters would not have killed me. I really just wanted to say to the world 'I made it without that piece of paper, defied the odds, and did what I set out to do.' I've been humbled quite a bit as I've seen college graduates make tenfold the money I do, have more social encounters, and still somehow pursue their side projects.

I'm a first generation American without a father figure, so my whole life I've tried to be a man even though I was only a boy. That definitely has had an impact on my world perspective. Today, as my prefrontal cortex has almost fully developed at age 23, the 'angry young lad' in me has begun to calm down into a simple, passionate member of civilization. I've decided to go back to school (Gwinnett Tech) and finish my CIS degree. I hope it can provide a steady income while I attempt my second startup. I have learned to avoid extremes and see the world in a more balanced way. As the old saying goes, you live and you learn. That is definitely true. All in all, I have learned a lot that could never be taught in a classroom but I find myself in need of something to fall back on for those rainy days that no one ever wants or expects.

I think Dale Stephens is a nice guy but seriously missing the point. His followers mostly think just like him too and need some "authority figure" to justify their experience to themselves. I hope he learns that the future of education is a hybrid of in-person and internet models, as it should be.

rhcpfan1• 14 years ago

wise words. thanx for sharing.

The Unschooled. Does an education matter?

Related Stories