Althouse: "For the striving youths of 19th-century America, learning was often a self-driven, year-round process."

July 12, 2015

"For the striving youths of 19th-century America, learning was often a self-driven, year-round process."

"Devouring books by candlelight and debating issues by bonfire, the young men and women of the so-called 'go-ahead generation' worked to educate themselves into a better life. Is this old-fashioned culture of self-improvement making a comeback? The mainstream school system — with its barrage of tests, Common Core and 'excellent sheep' — encourages learning as a passive, standardized process. But here and there, with the help of YouTube and thousands of podcasts, a growing group of students and adults are beginning to supplement their education. School isn’t going away. But more and more people are realizing what their 19th-century predecessors knew: that the best learning is often self-taught...."

From "D.I.Y. Education Before YouTube."

20 comments:

Bob R said...: In the end, all education is DIY. Always has been. Always will be. Others can make it easier to DIY, but Y have to do it. (YouTube really is amazing. Learned how to fix my dishwasher and cook Gordon Ramsey's Beef Wellington in the last two days.); 7/12/15, 7:50 AM
Bobber Fleck said...: Back in 5th grade I sat next to the classroom bookshelf holding the Encyclopedia Britannica. Out of boredom I worked my way through all of the volumes. It was the most useful educational experience in my life.

You can get a great education at the public library if you are motivated and focused. But, of course, you can do just about anything if you are motivated and focused.; 7/12/15, 7:58 AM
sinz52 said...: I can speak from personal experience on this.

The online Khan Academy is a terrific educational portal.

https://www.khanacademy.org/

However, the problem with being self-taught is that potential clients still want to see those college degrees. Remember that TV commercial from the 1970s, in which Abraham Lincoln can't find an executive job because he's self-taught?

"You ain't going nowhere without that sheepskin, fella."

That was a commercial for the College Level Examination Program (CLEP), in which you can earn college credits by passing exams for subjects you have taught to yourself.

That idea should be expanded. You should be able to take the same midterms and final exams as are offered by any accredited college, and submit the same essays. If you pass them, you should be able to get college credits for that subject.; 7/12/15, 8:00 AM
Unknown said...: My nephew (22) is staying with me, he's the most apathetic human I've ever met. Very smart but too smart for public school so he just coasted through. He found something he likes, shooting. We have very long ranges available where you have to know ballistics tables. After several long range misses I showed him the physics of parabolic weapons. He's hooked and since has started watching you tube of physics of weapons and that lead to other things. He says he might like to go to school and study more science.; 7/12/15, 9:40 AM
iowan2 said...: In my profession we have a self credentialing system. You get the credential by being in the top 30% of everyone in the state that takes the test. NOT achieving 70% Being in the top 30%. Some years that requires a passing grade exceeding 85%. I am not college educated. Thru experience and self taught in the sciences I performed better than those fresh out of college studying the appropriate sciences.

The point being, college education is overrated and work ethic and desire under appreciated.; 7/12/15, 9:43 AM
David said...: A large percentage of education is DIY, even in school years. Indeed the purpose of education is to teach how to educate yourself. My grandparents were well educated people, though not one of them had formal education beyond high school. Far better educated than most college graduates today, I would say.; 7/12/15, 10:36 AM
David said...: Sorry Bob R. You already made the point. I should read the comments first.; 7/12/15, 10:38 AM
Unknown said...: There's a shake out shaping up, slowly and mainly in higher ed for now. I'm once retired and on the staff at a small private school. Such places are failing year by year. I need to make five years here and I'll do it but I'm glad I don't need thirty. The last three summers enrollment events have been more and more frequent on campus. This summer it's practically a summer long non-stop effort. And enrollment will still decline. In the larger picture the slow slide can't turn to an avalanche too soon as far as the good of the culture is concerned. Educational institutions lead the charge for the legions of cultural degradation and the metastasizing state, both. It's likely too late to do lasting good but I'm hopeful. Might as well be.; 7/12/15, 12:40 PM
Michael K said...: Good to see the khan academy reference.

My middle daughter, who was within a year of her PhD when she quite grad school is now talking UCLA certificate courses in project management and accounting to help with the development of a new app she and her partner are trying to sell.

When I was in 8th grade, I read my cousin's high school world history textbook. It read like novel. I;ve tried to find a copy for my grandkids but haven't been able to.

Much too much TV now. Friends of mine in Arizona had no TV all the time their boys were growing up. The had a big screen for video games but no network connection. The oldest boy graduated in engineering and is a Marine office applying for flight training. The second is a junior in petroleum engineering and is an excellent concert pianist. The youngest is now in college.; 7/12/15, 2:03 PM
Etienne said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/12/15, 3:02 PM
n.n said...: A school marks the beginning, not end of an individual's education. Too many people do not learn how their minds work, but rather how someone believes they should. There is little diversity in a classroom education for practical reasons.; 7/12/15, 3:57 PM
Michael K said...: I'm also an old man and now that My book is finished, I'm studying Physics for Engineers. I took the course in 1956 and thought I would do it again. Also reviewing my Calculus. Anything to keep senility at bay.; 7/12/15, 4:27 PM
Gabriel said...: Learning is free. Someone who is determined to learn cannot be prevented from learning anything within their capabilities. Exhibit A: Frederick Douglas and every other slave who learned to read despite severe consequences for getting caught.

Our educational system produces the results that it does because the vast majority of those enrolled in it do not desire to learn, They desire the benefits of certification for having learned, which is a very different thing. They desire the prize, not the race.

No one has ever figured out how to teach people who do not care to learn. It may be that no one ever will. Edward Gibbon said it over 200 hundred years ago:

"But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous."; 7/12/15, 4:56 PM
Gabriel said...: @sinz52: CLEP is still around. It has been for my entire life.

The only reason anyone bothered to come up with online courses, given the existence of CLEP: online courses are easy to cheat in, and CLEP is difficult to cheat.

It's win-win: universities collect practically the same in course fees, students can get their certification without having to do anything, everyone is happy.; 7/12/15, 4:58 PM
The Godfather said...: Boy I hope something changes in higher education. My oldest of three grandchildren will turn 12 next month. I really don't know how middle class people can educate their children today without taking on a huge burden of debt -- even with good state colleges and universities, as we have here in NC. I think the model needs to be changed.

College used to be a luxury good that the rich could afford. Those who weren't rich, but were very smart, could get scholarships. But those who were neither rich nor brilliant could get good jobs and earn a good living without a college degree. What was wrong with that model?; 7/12/15, 5:29 PM
Etienne said...: What was wrong with that model?

The Industrial Revolution ended.; 7/12/15, 6:30 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: That idea should be expanded. You should be able to take the same midterms and final exams as are offered by any accredited college, and submit the same essays. If you pass them, you should be able to get college credits for that subject.

University of London International Programmes offers exactly that. You take the same level of exam at the end of the year that they take there, and that's how you earn your credit.

Businesses requiring degrees have ruined the college environment.

Now a great number of striving youths are caught up in the self-driven, year-round process of video game playing and porn watching. Parenting e-lists offer endless horror stories. If a kid wants to use a computer, he should use it to write on a word processor, get an education, or play around programming the thing.; 7/12/15, 9:14 PM
RichardJohnson said...: "For the striving youths of 19th-century America, learning was often a self-driven, year-round process."

Here are two books, one autobiography and one biography, which illustrate this self-propelled learning. Both protagonists had to leave school as young adolescents to help support their families. The Americanization of Edward Bok, by Edward William Bok, is the story of a Dutch immigrant who later became editor of the Ladies Home Journal. While working as a teenager in New York City, he came up with the idea of writing famous people, such as Ulysses S. Grant, to get their autographs and their insights on their success. It is not difficult to see a journalist in the making.

The Bobbin Boy, by William Makepeace Thayer, is a biography of Nathaniel Banks, who later became Governor of Massachusetts and later a General in the Civil War, courtesy of his political standing. As a youth he worked in a textile mill- thus the Bobbin Boy. While working and not attending school, he read extensively and also attended speeches, thinking nothing of walking 10 miles into Boston to hear a speech.

There was not much self-pity in those boys.; 7/13/15, 12:14 AM
Peter said...: As education migrates out of the classroom to online venues, it will increasingly reward those who are self-disciplined enough to persevere and discard those who are not.

Presumably there will be ever-more government programs to support the latter.; 7/13/15, 8:51 AM
the Egyptian said...: as a 56 year old organic dairy farmer,I was a failure in school, didn't care about what they were teaching, however my high school government teacher told me after the year end that I had a better grasp of how government worked than anyone in the class, I just sucked at dates, she wanted to give me better grade but the rules said no.
If it weren't for vo-ag/FFA and industrial arts I'd have failed, work release my senior year was the best experience I had, worked for a John Deere dealer, learned more there than any class. Vo Ag/FFA was and still is hands on learning, how to speak in public, present your self, how to account for you projects, Everything I learned about organics i learned myself, lots of reading and experimenting, busted knuckles and so on. My only saving grace is my Mother beat (yeah I was stubborn) a love of reading into me making the internet both a blessing and a curse; 7/14/15, 7:39 AM