I value formal education because it teaches you how to find answers to questions that come up throughout your life. It also serves as a social preparation tool since it teaches you how to get along with other people.
But formal education isn’t the only learning experience we receive. There’s the so-called “school of hard knocks” that everybody gets lessons from eventually, and the more planned curriculum of self-education that not everyone benefits from. You learn all through your life one way or another.
Consider these examples:
All mid-teen aged kids in America dream of getting a driver’s license when they turn 16. They must learn their state’s driving laws, and how to drive, before they can pass the driving test.
When you’re ready to get a job, start a business, or both. Your first obligation is learn how to do the work.
When you become a mother or father, you need knowledge about how to raise kids. This is a tough one…most of us learn this stuff the hard way, and I don’t think anyone ever learns how to become the perfect parent.
Just ask your kids.
Most formal education happens in school because parents can’t teach for various reasons. Though there is a large home-schooling environment today.
What you get from formal education is the ability to learn (or how to find the answers you need to satisfy your obligations in life).
Your true learning comes once you’re away from the formal learning, preferably in a self-education process. That’s where you teach yourself, it’s where you learn what you need to survive and succeed.
Figure out what most interests you – that activity you enjoy more than anything else – the thing you want to make (or honestly feel is) your life’s work.
You only need read an hour each day about that one thing. You can read more than that if you like, but reading only one hour each day for one year makes you knowledgeable about that subject.
Read about one subject for one hour every day for five years, and the world respects you as an expert on that subject. When you’re an expert people seek you out for the answers. As an expert you’re a very important person.
All because you learned how to learn from your formal education, used that knowledge to create a self-education course, and put it to use.
What about that social thing I mentioned earlier? You learn how to get along with others (or not depending on how you use your lessons). This social education is easier to learn away from home, you have more people to study.
In school, and out in the world, watch the people around you. Observe how they act and learn the different ways that you can interact with them.
