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In The Age of the Autodidact
The new world demands we teach ourselves.
“She can’t listen and follow directions.” That’s what my teachers always hated about me. For example, one of them screamed in my face for drawing a killer whale instead of a castle.
“What’s wrong with you?” she wailed. She pointed at the instructions. Yes, for how to draw a castle. The instructions explained everything my drawing needed, right down to a moat and drawbridge.
It was art class. But what I wanted to do didn’t matter.
Later, I figured out the secret. There wasn’t anything wrong with me. Just the directions. So I’d made my own.
I’ve been doing that ever since. Even when it led to trouble. You can imagine I got terrible grades until the end of middle school, when the board finally let me into their gifted program.
After that, I bloomed. These teachers let me do what I wanted. As long as I could show that I was learning. They didn’t care about listening and following directions. Just results.
In fact, they usually didn’t give directions at all.
Surprise, life doesn’t give you directions.
Here’s the secret about education — and life: Nobody can teach you anything. Not really. The sooner you accept that, the better…
