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hawkwing_lbThat's 300 words of essay, and time out for catwaxing and dinner while I think about the next three hundred.
I've been doing a bit of thinking lately about autodidacticism, and why the habit of self-directed learning is a good thing.
I had a good basic education. Good teachers (for the most part), interesting courses - I have a grounding that I could build on in biology, physics, maths, chemistry, languages, and a grouding that I did build on in history and critical thinking*.
But post-primary education is incredibly narrow and incomplete. I was always a history geek, so when I realised how very basic my secondary history education really was** (although on the causes of WWI and WWII? Quite detailed, thank you.), I started doing some extra reading.
What I know about the SOE in WWII is self-taught, for example. Verdun and Gallipoli in WWI? Self-taught. The Russian gulag sytem and its lasting effects on modern Russia? The medieval world and medieval self-understanding? The empresses of medieval Byzantium? The first crusade?
All self-taught. And what I know about self-teaching is also (mostly) self-taught.***
(Although what I know about self-teaching falls apart when it comes to teaching myself a process. Bodhrán-playing, for example. It's a series of repetitive actions that take time and persistence to put together in a meaningful way. The tin whistle, likewise. Cooking, on the other hand, seems to be about experimenting madly until I find something that works. And we will not speak of writing, which as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala has so often said, is like everything.)
Now that I'm in college, I'm finding self-teaching very useful to fill up gaps in what the lectures offer, as well as gaps in my own knowledge.
(I am slowly, for example, introducing myself to the English literary canon, starting with Marlowe. In the summer, I will be introducing myself to the Roman literature, and teaching myself Latin. I have no plans to further my understanding of Irish history, though. It's hard to appreciate thoughtful analyses of past blunders, bigotry and/or cruelty when you're living with the dust of their legacies. But I suspect that may yet change.)
Autodidacticism. Everyone who reads nonfiction does it, to one degree or another. But doing it - knowing that you're directing your own learning - is really one of the things 'official' education doesn't encourage. (Not until you get to third level, anyway, and that's a whole 'nother jar of worms.)
And yet, the people who learn early that they can direct their own learning (anecdotally) seem to be the ones who keep learning their whole lives long.
...Well, that's a thoroughly waxed cat. Since I've run out of waffly thinky thoughts, I should go back to my essay.
*Though those two come bound up together, in my view.
**Europe 1870-1960 and Ireland 1869-1960. With large chunks - such as Spain, and post-WWII Russia, left out for time constraints.
***For history: pick something and read widely about it. Assess the sources for biases, and the theories for whackjobbery. As you go, keep fitting the bits together until things make some sort of sense. For the sciences: the latest research is almost always out of date by the time it's published, so it's futile to try to keep up with the cutting edge. Get a good grip on the basics first (or instead).
I've been doing a bit of thinking lately about autodidacticism, and why the habit of self-directed learning is a good thing.
I had a good basic education. Good teachers (for the most part), interesting courses - I have a grounding that I could build on in biology, physics, maths, chemistry, languages, and a grouding that I did build on in history and critical thinking*.
But post-primary education is incredibly narrow and incomplete. I was always a history geek, so when I realised how very basic my secondary history education really was** (although on the causes of WWI and WWII? Quite detailed, thank you.), I started doing some extra reading.
What I know about the SOE in WWII is self-taught, for example. Verdun and Gallipoli in WWI? Self-taught. The Russian gulag sytem and its lasting effects on modern Russia? The medieval world and medieval self-understanding? The empresses of medieval Byzantium? The first crusade?
All self-taught. And what I know about self-teaching is also (mostly) self-taught.***
(Although what I know about self-teaching falls apart when it comes to teaching myself a process. Bodhrán-playing, for example. It's a series of repetitive actions that take time and persistence to put together in a meaningful way. The tin whistle, likewise. Cooking, on the other hand, seems to be about experimenting madly until I find something that works. And we will not speak of writing, which as
matociquala has so often said, is like everything.)Now that I'm in college, I'm finding self-teaching very useful to fill up gaps in what the lectures offer, as well as gaps in my own knowledge.
(I am slowly, for example, introducing myself to the English literary canon, starting with Marlowe. In the summer, I will be introducing myself to the Roman literature, and teaching myself Latin. I have no plans to further my understanding of Irish history, though. It's hard to appreciate thoughtful analyses of past blunders, bigotry and/or cruelty when you're living with the dust of their legacies. But I suspect that may yet change.)
Autodidacticism. Everyone who reads nonfiction does it, to one degree or another. But doing it - knowing that you're directing your own learning - is really one of the things 'official' education doesn't encourage. (Not until you get to third level, anyway, and that's a whole 'nother jar of worms.)
And yet, the people who learn early that they can direct their own learning (anecdotally) seem to be the ones who keep learning their whole lives long.
...Well, that's a thoroughly waxed cat. Since I've run out of waffly thinky thoughts, I should go back to my essay.
*Though those two come bound up together, in my view.
**Europe 1870-1960 and Ireland 1869-1960. With large chunks - such as Spain, and post-WWII Russia, left out for time constraints.
***For history: pick something and read widely about it. Assess the sources for biases, and the theories for whackjobbery. As you go, keep fitting the bits together until things make some sort of sense. For the sciences: the latest research is almost always out of date by the time it's published, so it's futile to try to keep up with the cutting edge. Get a good grip on the basics first (or instead).
