Independent Learning

This post was adapted from something that I had previously written.

I frequently use “Independent Learner” to refer to those who require the least amount of outside assistance to learn new skills. In reality, all learning can be classified as independent learning. This is because nobody can learn for you. Processing information, turning educational resources into a skill, practicing activities to improve proficiency, and providing the effort to learn are all the responsibility of the learner and not the teacher.

I can take this a step further. Teaching and Learning refer to the same process. This is something that I consider to be one of my defining beliefs. In order to learn, you must get yourself to utilize desire and resources. In order to teach, you must get someone to learn. Since the only person that can get you to learn is you, teaching requires you to learn and learning requires you to teach yourself.

Obviously, I don’t believe that the ideal education involves starting society from scratch every generation. If others are willing to provide you with resources, you can accept them without handing over your educational responsibilities. This is kind of like how you can live independently and still rely shop at stores that sell necessities.

The schools view teaching as a very different process. They believe that quality education requires the teaching profession to take over the students’ educational responsibilities. I view the educational controls as one of the defining characteristics of schooling.

Teachers (the profession, not those who actually teach) feel that if they study education, their expertise can provide a far more educational environment than one without their guidance. That may sound good at first, but they do not actually study education. They study how to implement the flawed theories behind the schooling system. Those who see the schools for what they really are will almost never subject themselves to further schooling, preventing anyone who truly understands education from qualifying to enter the profession. This effectively prevents the profession from making any progress.

It doesn’t help that those who want an education have next to no say over their education. Sure, they can choose from a selection of classes. This may make things look better, but it’s not nearly enough. Students aren’t allowed to decide what they want to learn within a subject, and they aren’t allowed to choose when or how they should learn. They are also restricted to the subjects that their teachers know.

Sometimes teachers can create the illusion that they are teaching their students. This happens because some students will develop skills because the schools are pushing them. They may memorize the steps for a task by listening to their teachers, but they learn how to apply those steps to the real task by doing these things for themselves. If the end result seems good enough, why is this a problem? There are actually several flaws that this creates.

First of all, the learning that the student encounters in this situation is more for the grades than the education. Since the teachers try to present the material in a way that everyone can grasp, the pace is geared toward the slowest students. In order to get good grades, a student must move slowly and take an inefficient approach toward education.

Secondly, waiting for instruction can develop bad habits. These students will not learn unless instructed to do so. If a teacher doesn’t have an understanding of something, the student will not be able to learn. These students will no longer be able to learn anything beyond what schooling has to offer.

Last but not least, teachers apply this single approach to all students. The stronger and better-motivated students will suffer as a result. Teachers have a few tricks to punish these students such as using grades that are required for graduation. Ultimately, teachers will punish those who engage in unauthorized learning since that learning will interfere with schoolwork. (I have encountered this personally)

The goal of the teaching profession is to control education. You can’t control something without creating restrictions. While they have proven that they can succeed in restricting education, they do not provide any educational benefits to counteract these restrictions.

If we are prohibited from expanding our educations beyond the schooling environment, we will not progress. Everything must be learned outside of the schools before teachers will be able to share with others. The only justification that I can understand for the schools educational restrictions is that everything that can be known is already known. This is something to which I disagree.

Going further on this point, society has serious flaws. As long as we train people based off of how society works, we are not going to see a better way. By opening up the educational process, we would likely be able to see more and work toward a better future for mankind. Instead, humanity is stagnant. No true progress has existed for decades. We are in desperate need of something better, but we have been trained to keep things the same.

Some students don’t want to learn because they are too busy trying to get good grades. Others don’t want to learn because they associate learning with punishment. Without our ability to learn, we restrict our beliefs, thoughts, and opinions to those that others have shared with us. We are not smart enough to know anything unless we are told. With the schools telling us that the schools are educational, we never think about the possibility of legalizing true education. This must change.