Learning is Important

From a very young age my mom instilled the importance of learning in my and my sibling’s minds and hearts. Being homeschooled until my 8^th grade year, I grew up with the understanding that a person can learn from anything and anyone; learning was not limited to school. Due to this, I felt as if the whole world was my playground, everything I could explore with my five senses was at my disposal, and it was my ambition to learn from each little thing I encountered.

Observing nature taught me more than anything else I can remember. I was constantly collecting different species of bugs, reptiles and amphibians to identify and study. Capturing these little animals in jars or buckets I would lug them into the house and flip through my mother’s collection of identification books until I found the specimen I had entrapped. After discovering the name of the species, I would gather as much information as I could find on them and learn all I could before running back outside to unearth my next specimen. Most of the critters I caught I would return to where I found them, but some of the not so fortunate ones would find themselves plopped in terrariums for further observation. I did much of the same thing with various flowers, trees, wild berries, etc. Anything I could find I was excited to learn from. I had an undying love for nature and all that it taught me.\

Other than observing and identifying, I also learned to heal and nurture. When I was fairly young my siblings and I would constantly find baby rabbits that had fallen down into our window wells, and birds that had broken wings or feet stuck in the grass. We would rescue them from whatever peril they were in and carry them into my parents. The ones that were too young or injured for us to properly care for would get taken to the nature center, while we were allowed to nurse the others back to health. As I got older this love of nurturing and healing grew with me, I was constantly fixing up farm cats that had gotten into fights or dogs with various ailments. Anytime I didn’t know what was wrong with an animal I would research and research until I found the problem and treatment. Since I always learned from nature I’ve never had a lack of respect for it, littering and pollution disgust me and I was taught to always leave a place cleaner than I found it. After all why disrespect nature when I have learned so much from it?

Nature isn’t the only thing I learned from however, I was constantly reading anything I could get my hands on. I loved reading Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, James Herriot and Mark Twain as well as countless mystery novels and absolutely anything about animals. I would spend immeasurable hours in my room going through my dozens of books on animal health, underlining, highlighting and memorizing as much as I could. My mom would also frequently take us to nature centers, museums, and The Exploration Place for as much hands on learning as possible. I absolutely loved learning and knew I could learn from every situation, person, animal and thing I encountered.

However, as I entered 8^th grade and moved through public school, that knowledge that I could learn outside of school slowly began to disappear. I still loved learning and while all the other kids chose Family Planning and other skate-by electives I chose extra science courses and Spanish. I was always excited to learn new things, but as I continued through school it became less and less about learning and more about regurgitating meaningless material. When I entered college it only got worse, even the professors were uninterested in the subjects they were “teaching” and couldn’t care less if their students were actually learning. True learning was no longer seemed to be important, all that mattered was if an individual could memorize pages and pages of useless material, regurgitate it onto a test and then forget everything. All in order to get a piece of paper that supposedly means that individual is better for a job than an individual who never went to college but instead spent countless hours self educating themselves and legitimately loved learning. Society has brainwashed us into believing this is acceptable, and society is paying for it. The ignorant frat boy who spent all of college partying is able to skate by and get his degree because he is able to regurgitate material. In today’s society that piece of paper somehow makes him better than a hard working, intelligent man who loves learning, but maybe couldn’t afford college or realized that the system was inferior to self education.

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he has learned in school.”
--Albert Einstein

Just last week, I was extremely discouraged because everyone I talked to was going back to school. That is everyone except for me. I had this dying desire to get back in school, because I missed learning so much. There are so many things I want to learn about and I’ve had it pounded into my head since 8^th grade that unless you’re in school you’re not learning. So here I was, thinking unless I get back in school I’m going to turn out to be a failure and I’m not going to learn anything new. That’s when I began reading a book called Life is So Good by George Dawson. It’s an amazingly inspirational book about an African American man who learns to read and write at the age of 98. That in itself is inspiring, but the book also illustrates the importance of hard work, self education and a desire to learn. Upon finishing the book, it instantly clicked. What I had been shown as a child suddenly came rushing back. There is no need to rely on school to get an education. With determination, hard work and a love of learning a person can achieve the education they desire without ever attending school.

Once I had this set in my mind it became clear, all I needed was a plan of action. First of all what am I interested in learning about? U.S. Presidents, history, poetry, photography, guns, archery, different cultures, anatomy and physiology, how to speak Italian; the list goes on and on. So now all I need to do is work on learning about those things by using any resource possible. My plan as of now is to pick a topic each month and spend that entire month learning as much as possible on that topic. I want to learn something new every day and never stop learning. One of my favorite authors, Mark Twain, once wrote; “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Never again will I let myself get sucked into thinking a piece of paper earned for repetition is better than a desire for true learning. What about you?