This issue is something that is important to me. I get a lot of people asking me what I can do with my degree in Classics, and why I would want to study it… I spend a lot of time ranting over the fact that learning is not a means to an end, not for the purpose of installing yourself in ‘acceptable’ employment, but the end itself. I think it’s very important to learn things you find interesting and expand your horizons, whether this is in the formal education system or not. In fact these days I’m finding you learn more outside of educational institutions than in them! And since life is all about learning, I’ve been trying to apply my views on education to life in general – that we should try to find meaning in our lives now, rather than living our lives backwards from an amorphous sense of what we want to be/feel we ought to be when we are older. That’s not to say i don’t think planning ahead is important, i just feel that life is more about the journey than the destination. I don’t know who said that, but it’s very wise!

I’ve been conditioned to think that the only education that I receive is in the classroom. It’s a continually struggle to break that mindset and not to call myself dumb and compare myself to other classmates and their academic/career success. Just because they are pursuing graduate school or got really high paying awesome jobs out of college, doesn’t mean my intelligence is any less. Yet, I’m always finding myself falling into that mindset of thinking well I am only going to be smart if I have that PhD in Physics and Math.

It wasn’t really until this year as I started to come into my own as a newbie teacher that I realized at how educated I was. As I came into contact with more and more people outside the university, it began to dawn on me at how well educated I was and how uneducated I was too. Not everything you learn in life can be from a book. I began to make a lot of mistakes that the safety of a classroom protected me from. Yet, every little mistake be it in my social life, home life, work life, etc. was a lesson.

Teaching others has probably been one of the biggest eternal learning lessons. Everyday I learn something new about me or about my students or whatever. Traveling is my next continual learning lesson.

I love learning I don’t think I could live without it. I’m glad you strive to learn too.

Its understandable that you feel that way, glad you made changes to realize you don’t need no stinkin’ degree

(I just got my B.A. and I still feel like an idiot)

Hi Allison and All,

My Mother always said how ignorant she was and how brilliant her kids were. She ‘knew’ she couldn’t do certain things so she never tried … until she had to and then she did just fine. My Mother has always spent a lot of time reading and using a rarely used learning technique – listening to what other people have to say. This was all heaped upon a foundation of common sense and hard experience living through a depression and a world war. Life has educated her well, but she is in the habit of continually belittling herself. Once when she was saying how ignorant she thinks she is, I turned to her and asked, “If you’re so ignorant and we’re so brilliant, why are you always giving us advice?” She had no answer. I believe that at some level she knows better … and I wish that level was closer to the surface! I think that she believes that the information she passes along is from other sources so it isn’t ‘her’ wisdom. The thing is, most of what we pass along is learned from others in some ways (experience just tests what we have learned and thoroughly rubs in the parts of what we learned that are true). We act as filters. If 90% of what we hear is rubbish and we pass along only the 10% that’s not, we have shown the intelligence and wisdom to know what is good and right and true. We are not the source but what filters through us tells a lot about our natures.

A huge number of the people I meet in the world don’t work in the field that they studied to be in. The most competent people I used to meet in the work field were people that trained as teachers. I guess they found out that, according to the old saying (“Those that can do; Those that can’t, teach; Those that can’t teach, administrate.”), that they were doers. I’m not the biggest fan of that saying so I guess I should have used what’s left of my intelligence to filter it. I’d like to believe that those who left the teaching profession are still teaching and inspiring others where they end up. Hmmm. Lost track. Oh. I have heard some parents realize that they are going to spend $100,000.00 or more putting their child through college only to have them never use their degrees and give them the option of using that money to set up a business instead. I guess that could and does work for someone. I think anyone that has never worked for someone has a giant hole in his or her life education.

My saddest memory of school was that the kids used their intelligence to avoid getting an education. They would ask questions they knew the answers to in order to gum up the works and avoid moving on to harder material. They were cheating themselves and everyone else. They were refusing a gift that had been bought and paid for. They didn’t think of their education as part of their life (per Dewey’s quote) and wasted it.

Take Care,

David

Allison,

Bella, I think those two quotes you posted sums it up nicely. Education is a life long thing, not something that is institutionalized. What I am saying is… and I really do hope this doesn’t come out the wrong way…school isn’t the only source of Education. If you choose to get your degree, great, if you don’t that is ok. Life is a learning Process, form when you first learn to take that first step to when you take your last breath. To me a degree shows what your strengths are. I have MY Masters in Biochemistry and a Doctorate in Psychology. Those are my strenghts… but honestly Math is my weakness…

Also you can learn everything a University can teach you and if you don’t appreciate it… it means nothing. You also can be of limited education and still be of high Intellectual Value. My mother, only had a US equivalent to a Fifth grade Education, and when someone meets her they think she had graduated from Cambridge or Harvard. She is the smartest woman I know. You don’t need a degree to measure your Intellect. If you can think for yourself, Learn form the world around you, thats education, not just following a schedule and listen to someone recite passages from a book.

Sweetie what I am saying, you are smart regardless. I read your blogs and based on those and those thoughts you have, I believe you are a very intellectual woman. And soo what if you chalk things up to stupidity… I do too sometimes we all do hehe. Now if you get out of doing something with that excuse then yeah, it’s a problem…;)

God Bless you and your family,

Gabriela

hi Allison,
i think that you are right we do always keep learning it never stops. i’m still in school, but i still learn while i’m not in a classroom. Every mistake made helps you learn. your blogs always make me think, and i love them.

hope you have a great summer.

hugesmallvillefan (Craig)

Well, as someone in the education biz, I’ll put my hand up at the back of the class and say obviously you’re an intelligent and thoughtful person, and you have identified a key issue in education, which is the complex relationship between education as an ideal and education as a social practice. A college degree is a social, political and economic process which legitimizes one’s learning, and enables someone to say that – in a social sense – they really are “educated”. But especially nowadays, in the era of commodified education and students-as-consumers, it is right to question the value of a degree, even as the university is still the main legitimizing mechanism for education, and know that much of the knowledge a degree provides can be acquired in other ways. And yet, institutional education is such a complex process and its power structures are so potent that it can still do things that other learning mechanisms can’t. In its defence, there is its potential for discovery, for new and unexpected interactions with other students, professors, and scholarship. There is also its potential for discomfort, for being taken out of one’s comfort zone. The confronting process of assessment does this, although not always usefully. So to can being exposed to new kinds of critical writing and dialogue. Rather than offering a path to personal growth in an emotional sense, these can deal with the individual as a social, political and economic subject, around categories like gender, race, nation, and so forth, which are produced by politics and culture. In one of my classes I use an episode of Smallville (which is how I came to read your website) in which some of the characters travel to China (which is my research specialism). The episode offers several of strikingly different, incompatible and distilled versions of what “China” can mean and how it can be represented. It opens up all kinds of questions about culture, identity, race, representation and more. (It’s very useful.) Dealing with culture and social life in this way can be very challenging and discomforting, especially if it leads one to reflect upon one’s own placement in social structures under these categories like race, gender, and even education level, but in that reflection is transformative potential.

PS:

Here are a couple things I thought were funny that somewhat relate.

I heard about a T-shirt someone saw the other day. It read: “Take My Advice …I’m not using it”

My wife ran a social service agency that hired elderly people to visit elderly shut-in people and elderly people with Down’s syndrome. They were wellness visits and gave the people a chance to socialize and get out a bit. After talking with one of her workers, the worker turned to my wife and said, “Wow! Working with you, I learn something new every day!” My wife said, “Unfortunately, it’s always the same new thing you learned yesterday.” I guess that’s more sad than funny. But it also teaches us that the ability to learn and retain what we’ve learned isn’t a given — it’s a gift that we can lose. So we should appreciate it and use it while we have it … and hopefully have some kind, thoughtful people to surround us by the time we no longer have it.

Hi Allison,

It’s very funny that you bring up the subject of ecducation because I had a conversation with my Mum, my brother and some of my best friends about this just last night.

At times I’ve felt shame and embaressment and even guilt at not going to college.

Now I had the opportunity to study at college way back (12 years ago) and had the grades but I decided it was not for at that time in my life.I have never had a life plan I’ve just always stuck to doing something that makes you happy and if not then don’t do it..LIFE SHOULD BE FUN.

Now do I regret it, um,well my Mum stated that she wished I had gone to uni/college, my friends have made their own lives with more “secure” jobs and I guess have a great deal more status than myself at present.

Now do i regret NOT going to higher education, well somedays, but then I would have never met or have gotten to known the various people from all aspects of life or had the life experiences that I have had thus far.

Having said all this , I am currently looking to either return to a secure job within the police or make that jump and study at a local college which would hopefully lead to a better fullfilling career, I just have not decided yet…

Now am I against Universities, of course not, I think many life long freinds and contacts are made at universtiy, but leraning is more about peoples attitude then where they are, and a degree is only a piece of paper!
There are many people I know who have degrees yet have no commonsense, are narrow minded and do look down with those of us without one, whereas, I’ve met people in low paid jobs who have been very intelligent, have a great deal of common sense.

Life is one long life lesson I guess in all aspects of life not merely the academic ones, personally I hope I always learn things each and every day!

Now am I stupid, well that’s for the people that know me to decide but I know I do stupid things, but I hope I learn from my mistakes look at myself and my action as to why I did them and hopefully not repeat them again..

For me I often fall into the trap of think what if i did this or said that, but you can’t change the past and ironically we wouldn’t be the same people that each of us are today if we did.

Degrees are great, and give people many career opportunities later in life , but I hope people do not take tham as the be and end all of how “educated” someone is becuase the enitre World is much, much bigger than a college and I for one take much larger stock in someone’s attitude to others then how many letters are after their name!..although if had gone to higher education I’m sure my grammer would be far better than it is haha!

If we all keep our minds open, we will all continue to learn,

Have a great week, keep well and continue having fun,

Robin

England

I see where you are coming from. I’m at the age where everyone else is just graduating college and starting their fab jobs as doctors and lawyers. Just because I took a different path, doesn’t make me any less smarter than them. No need for regrets as long as I’m happy with this path I chose, in which I am. And as long as your happy, that is all that counts!

I was reading a book the other day that talks about how being involved in school and getting good grades does not necessarily make you the smartest person in the world. Experiencing life in the real world is another element that we need to take in and learn from. Without having a balance of both worlds, a person will have a stressful time functioning in the world. Just keep pressing on because God made you a beautiful person and as long as you continue doing what you love then you are glorifying him.:)

It’s nice to see that you still love talking to use!

As one of the posters above has mentioned, I never fully understood how someone could learn without being in a classroom. Granted, I’m still in highschool and have yet to find out the “meaning of life”, but learning never starts at an age ( I think, at least). And after watching “Are you smarter than a Fifth grader?” a couple of times, its obvious you don’t learn EVERything in school. :p Also, since someone up there stole the quote that I was going to mention from Socrates, and I only took philosophy once, I have no wisdom to share.

I hope you are doing well . Keep your spirits high (along with your chin) and your worries low.

JOY

Hi Allison,
Well I think your very smart. I think there are times in all of our lives when we all say I’m stupid. For me it wasn’t to long ago that I said that. I was watching “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader” and thought I had the right answer to a very easy question and got it wrong. lol I could not believe I forgot something from fifth grade. I didn’t mind going to school,I would have liked it better if I didn’t have such mean teachers and terrible kids that were always mean and had their little clicks. Kids can be so cruel sometimes. I love the quotes. I didn’t go to college and would like to go someday,but now isn’t the time for me. I like the part in your blog where you said ” The truth of the matter is that we are forever learning; it never stops.” That is so true. Great Blog this week.

As long as someone has the right attitude about it, learning is a continual thing — and as you pointed out ‘learning never stops.’

Interesting thing about higher education is it doesn’t guarantee someone being a better person. After all, you don’t take ‘Honesty 101′ or ‘Morals 1A’ as courses. Not to downplay the importance of education, but there is a large difference in attaining knowledge than wisdom.

Wisdom is the application of knowledge, knowing right and wrong. Wisdom also naturally blooms into other desirable qualities (like compassion mentioned in your previous blog).

Nevertheless, the fact you approach life as a student proves learning is important to you and will erase any existing ignorances (though I would argue you have close to none).

Thanks

-da!

Of course we are constantly learning. It’s a vital part of human existence. When we show our real worth is when we turn around and teach what we’ve learned to those with less experience.

Intelligence isn’t something that can be measured indefinitely. We are beings that are constantly learning, it only matters whether we can adapt to the changes we’ve come to absorb from the world around us. The people around us, the situations we’re in also require intelligence to understand and cope with respectively. I don’t believe it’s fair to say that just because one has a degree that their intelligence is higher than any other’s. I know a few people who haven’t completed their education per se and are quite the philosophers, as well as mathematicians. An education helps some people acquire more knowledge, but it limits some other people too. If one recognizes a need for education at an institution, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll become automatically smarter. We all learn the same basic things in life, just depends on where we go with it. If we pursue our thirst for knowledge, it doesn’t mean that it will be quenched sitting at a desk hearing someone else teach you the same things you could go to a library and learn. The capacity to learn, to teach is all within the structure of our minds. Reading Dante’s Divine Comedy doesn’t mean that’s the end to our learning of the dimensions of salvation or Hell. Branching out from there, reading something from some other sources, that’s what defines intelligence to me. The willingness to learn and to not be stagnant once you’ve learned a little bit of a greater whole.

hey
and first up thnx for another blog,
learning isn’t just school or a college education of course thats part of it, but education is all through out your life, learning is constant and it grows, learning and education never stops, learning is finding things that make us who we are, and to add to that your not stupid, I belive that there is different kinds of smarts and your deff not stupid, I admire your willingless to learn, I just wish I could do that considering Im starting college is just over a month, but yeah your right education is just not to be stuck in a stuffy class room its out there everywhere we just got to go out find it and accept it…
this blog has set me in the right thinking perspective and that learning and education never ends
oh and never underestimate yourself =)

AmzxXx

What is the definition of “disciple”?

I applaud your courage! In your blogs you continually open up and let us all see the inside view. You aren’t afraid to share who you are with us. I have a couple of blog accounts, and I find it difficult to break down & get real! You give me encouragement.

As I read what you write I see a bit of a pattern. One that is all too familiar! The ‘buzz ‘words that describe this pattern are words like expectations & standards. When you were growing up did you & your siblings have a growth chart, or a place where your heights were measured & recorded? Did you always compare? If you had older sibs did you think that “When I’m as big as…” We do that type of comparing & standard setting. You’re not smart unless you have a degree. And those who have multiple degrees must be really smart! I used to cook for a community of Jesuit priests. To be a Jesuit guarantees at least one bachelors & two master’s degrees! I met Jesuits with multiple masters & doctorates! They were very bright, but they would be the first to say that their greatest strength came from working with & helping people.

I didn’t go to college after high school. I wasn’t ready. Then I got married & had kids. I got divorced after nearly 29 years of marriage & realized that I had to go to school to get some kind of training so that I could support myself. I started school 31 years after high school graduation! I was terrified. I loved it! I loved meeting the people, the learning, the challenges. I finished a two year degree in Accounting Technology & went to work. Somewhere in there I realized that the real education began the first day I went to work. Learning is lifelong–school gives you the tools & the background you need to further your learning!

Not going to school doesn’t mean you cease learning or that you don’t have the tools–my oldest son went into the Marines, & has never gone to school–he is one of the brightest people I know. He has such common sense and is able to reason things out in a way many ‘book learned people’ can’t. His younger brother is about to finish his chemical engineering degree with a 3.5 GPA . He’s always had excellent grades & is one my favorite people to talk ‘theories & isms’ with….but he has worked really hard to develop the same sense that his older brother just has!

Each of us has gifts, talents, strengths. Our biggest problem is that we often fail to recognize them because we value what we think other people have so much more than what we do!

Allison, you are incredibly intelligent, bright, caring & as beautiful on the inside as the outside. Your life has taught you so many things that can never be learned in a classroom. Stand tall & proud!

Hello, and great thoughts. Life is learning, and learning is life. You can not have one without the other. Each day is a new experience, and every experience is something new learned. It may be for the better, and it may be a better way. Even a failure is something learned. School can only teach one so much, but life so much more. I find that what I learned in school has little everyday use, in general, but I could not get along without the vast amounts of knowledge I acquired behind those little desks in the journey to adulthood. It is invaluable, but it is the things I have learned since that have molded me into what I have become. I never entered a higher learning institution, though I had a great opportunity to do so at no cost to me. I should have, and at times I regret not doing so, but over the years I have built up a storehouse of information. So much so that at work I have many times been approached by those with degrees of various types for help in solving some problem. They have been in design, streamlining, and even drawing a layout for departmental flow. Enough about nothing and back to your thoughts. In the process of living we have the opportunity to observe, to become involved in, and to absorb new knowledge. All this improves, empowers, and feeds us though those juvenile years when we should be learning, but unfortunately are not, into our adult lives when we wished we had studied more. It is never to late to learn. It is something we should strive for, whither it be behind a desk, of outside those walls. Learn everything that you can. If it is something you crave to know, learn it even if you never use the knowledge for more than satisfying your own needs to expand your horizons.
Enough said.
I enjoy reading your thoughts. Keep them coming.

I loved the quote especially the one of john dewey. i definitely think we are eternal students we do learn things everyday. Living life itself is learning. We learn from our mistakes and we learn from the people around us. All we have to do is listen even if it is in a classroom or if it is in your own home.

Maria

I have a Bachelor’s degree in my chosen profession. I loved attending university and I know that I took advantage of many of the intellectual and academic opportunities it provided me (and also all of the partying and socializing opportunities ). However, and perhaps this is because of the field I am in (Social Work), I have come to appreciate the lessons life has taught me outside of any formal classrooms far more than my degree program. In fact, I think that while my degree program gave me a relatively solid understanding of the grounds on which I practice, real life work experiences constantly educate me on what kind of practitioner I am (and want to be). Practically all of my skills have been developed in the field- not in the classroom.

All of my friends are currently or will soon begin their graduate work. They’re pretty much all very academic and intellectual. I occasionally feel stupid in comparison to them- especially because I find they devalue the real life learning that I hold dear. I think at the end of the day though, being critical and reflective of life’s lessons is going to be of more benefit to me anyways.

Hi beautiful Allison,

You shouldn’t call yourself stupid
I’m sure with your successful and busy life, it’s difficult to prioritize the many aspects of life.

To reiterate bourdieu:
Purpose of going to school – not only for learning text-based knowledge, but entails first person sociological conditioning and psychological development. Coupled with text-based learning, may even comprise culture.

To aqgalaxy:
My mother is similar. With only a high school education, doctors tell her she would have made a great doctor. She’s happy with her life and gets kick out of hearing her doctor say that.

To Knight1:
I agree with your assertion pertaining “street smarts” and/or “book-smarts”. There are many things that an education can’t teach a person. With growth comes experience, with experience comes knowledge, with knowledge comes wisdom (hence, eternal).

Some thoughts,

2 things in life, Teachers and people to Teach (cycle).
Knowledge (many forms) is power.
Good health and happiness are most important.
Money isn’t everything.
Being humble is key.

You can teach others in many ways. You can touch the lives of many by starting with one. Much like a cold, good-will can be very contagious. Through inspiration, teaching, contribution, etc… All of which becomes recycled. Simple endeavors provide many with gratitude, enriching their lives and the lives of many others – even without a “proper education”.

Enriching many hearts as well as your own. In the end, what counts most isn’t the material objects you’ve managed to accumulate, but rather, the betterment of lives you’ve managed to helped along the way, the feeling you get knowing you are a good person at heart is merely a constellation prize.

You are doing just that Allison, with your blog. And I have a sneaky suspicion you know. Whatever it is you decide to do, you will certainly do it well.

(that sound like a Johnathan Kent to Clark moment) :lol:

Ciao tutti,
- Tony
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - @ Allison

Hey

I have always thought like that, my whole life.
Once a teacher of mine told me that she was learning from us students every day just as much as we were learning from her and that stuck with me. I think I was about eight or nine so I was really impressed by that.
From then on I had the notion that you don’t only learn inside a classroom. Actually, I believe the most important lessons are learned outside those walls.

Now, I believe that lack of effort and responsibility can be some sort of stupidity because those who are not willing to learn are exactly that. But I’m not saying you are stupid

I have to go now, Microbiology exam :/

Keep writing
I love reading it

Take care

Kisses,
Nat

Allison,

My whole life I had teachers and other family members call me and my sister stupid because we didn’t achieve high test scores or good grades. My grade 8 teacher had little faith that me and my sister would be anything (eventually we believed that we were indeed stupid). When I went to Highschool, I realized there are two types of people: book smart and ‘street’ smart. Anyone can study for a test and get good. That doesn’t mean you understand it.
So, what me and my sister did, was we worked hard to prove everyone wrong. I feel that I am successful. I am working on becoming a Social Worker, and my sister got accepted into a Criminology program. I hate when people say you are not good enough if you don’t have a degree. What makes a person knowledgeable is wheter or not they have an ambition to learn and discover. For me, .9% of my knowledge comes from sitting in a class room. 99% comes from actually doing the stuff I set out to do.
I realize now that I will get nowhere in life pleasing society’s view on whether someone is smart or not.

P.S-I always thought a knowledgeable (or ‘smart’) person was supposed to enlighten another person (make them think outside the box). You may not think this, but you do enlighten a lot of people (fans) with your blogs and insight. You give potential actors/actresses a drive to do what you are doing.
Most people with degrees couldn’t do this.

Thanks for your insight.

Lauren