Ibn Sina (980-1037), 11th century self-educator and polymath

From "Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina [Avicenna], The Ideal Muslim Intellectual (eleventh century)," in Gettleman and Schaar, The Middle East and Islamic World Reader. Original source: A.J. Arberry, "Avicenna: His Life and Times" in G.M. Wickens, ed., Avicenna: Scientist and Philosopher (London: Luzac & Company, 1952), pp. 9 and 11-17:

When the Abbasid empire broke into small competing states, brilliant intellectuals such as Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina (980-1037) found many rulers willing to patronize their scholarship. The political instability resulting from the weakening of Abbasid authority did not stifle the tradition of cultural and intellectual exchange among Islamic cities and centers of learning. Born in a village near the Central Asian city of Bukhara, ibn Sina continuously traveled in search of knowledge and work. In the course of his voyages he distinguished himself as one of the most famous physicians, intellectuals, and men of science in the world, and Europeans continued to teach from his celebrated writings on medicine up to the eighteenth century. Not only did he master the many texts of ancient thinkers in Arabic translations, but he also added to knowledge in the fields of law, theology, philosophy, optics, astronomy, medicine, poetry, and philology.

[The following selection is from ibn Sina's autobiography]:

By the time I was ten I had mastered the Koran and a great deal of literature, so that I was marveled at for my aptitude.
...
(My father and my brother would discuss theology) while I listened and comprehended all they said; but my spirit would not assent to their argument...[T]hey began to invite me to join...rolling on their tongues talk about philosophy, geometry, Indian arithmetic; and my father sent me to a certain vegetable seller who used the Indian arithmetic [and algebra], so that I might learn it from him.

Then there came to Bukhara a man called Abu Abd Allah al-Natili who claimed to be a philosopher; my father invited him to stay in our house, hoping that I would learn from him also. Before his advent [arrival] I had already occupied myself with Muslim jurisprudence, attending [studying with] Isma'il the Ascetic; so I was an excellent inquirer, having become familiar with the methods of postulation and the techniques of rebuttal according to the usages of the canon lawyers. ...He marveled at me exceedingly, and warned my father that I should not engage in any other occupation but learning; whatever problem he stated to me, I showed a better mental conception of it than he. So I continued until I had read the straightforward parts of [Aristotle's] Logic with him; as for the subtler points, he had no acquaintance with them.

From then onward I took to reading texts by myself; I studied the commentators until I had...mastered...Logic. Similarly with Euclid['s Elements of Geometry] I read the first five or six figures with him; and thereafter undertook on my own account to solve the entire remainder of the book.

I now occupied myself with mastering the various texts and commentaries on natural sciences and metaphysics, until all the gates of knowledge were open to me. Next I desired to study medicine, and...[proceeded] to read all the books that had been written on this subject. Medicine is not a difficult science, and naturally I excelled in it in a very short time, so that qualified physicians began to read medicine with me.

Charles D. Hayes on self-education in the "September" of life

Self-education advocate Charles D. Hayes just mailed me a copy of his newest book, September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life. He argues that self-education can help people find purpose and meaning later in life by "erasing the concept of retirement." Hayes writes: "The more we learn and expand our knowledge of the world, the more meaningful our understanding becomes."

You can read more about the book and support the work of a great self-educator by purchasing a copy here. I am planning to interview Hayes on Wide Awake Minds this spring.

Self-educators, polymaths, and lovers of learning

I am constantly adding new links and resources to the sidebar, and I've just added an entire section with links to biographies - usually on Wikipedia - of "self-educators, polymaths, and lovers of learning." The word "polymath" refers to a person who is highly skilled in several disciplines or fields of study.

The list is far from complete - I could put a thousand names on it and still miss countless famous and unknown self-educators and lifelong learners. But it is worth exploring; I included quite a few names that I hadn't heard of until today. I'll continue adding to the list in the coming weeks and months.

Benjamin Franklin: America's greatest self-educator

The following excerpts are from Carl Van Doren's "Meet Dr. Franklin," in Van Deusen, ed., Readings in American History:

Franklin had, I think, the most eminent mind that has ever existed in America. No wonder there are so many legendary misconceptions of him that it is difficult now to restore and comprehend him in the great integrity of his mind, character, and personality. He appears, somehow, to be a syndicate of men. We study him as a scientist, as a diplomat, as a statesman, as a business man, as an economist, as a printer, as a humorist and wit, as a great writer, as a sage, and as a great landmark in the history of human speech about the common ways of life.
...
Franklin's eminence was in his almost supreme mind that moved to its countless tasks with what seems perfect ease.
...
The experiment which Franklin proposed, to prove whether electricity and lightning were identical, and his own separate demonstration with the kite, must be ranked with the most fundamental as well as the most striking experiments in scientific history. The story of the kit is now so old and so familiar that it has come to seem a pleasant legend.... Franklin, drawing the lightning from the skies, removed it from the dread region of mythology. Kant was not speaking for picturesque effect when he said Franklin was a new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven. The expression meant, literally, that Franklin had made men equals of the gods and therefore free of an ancient slavish dread. Nobody in 1752 felt that the kite story was a quaint little incident.
...
Though from 1773 to 1783 Franklin was so much absorbed in politics he had little time for general ideas, he had hardly signed the final treaty of peace with England when his mind was alert with bold conjectures again. Having seen the first ascent of human passengers in a free balloon, in Paris in November 1783, Franklin at once - and apparently alone among his contemporaries - foresaw the possibility of aerial warfare. This discovery, he wrote in December, might "give a new turn to human affairs."
...
Though Franklin was an excellent and successful business man, he retired from active business at forty-two and spent forty-two years more in the service of the public. He might have made a fortune if he had patented his stove or his lightning-rod. He refused to patent anything which he thought might be of benefit to mankind. As he did not hungrily gather wealth, so he did not cautiously guard his comfort or safety. It must never be forgotten that in his seventieth year Franklin might with decency have done what his more conservative son advised him to do: that is, retire from active affairs and let younger men settle the conflict between England and America. Instead Franklin, at the risk of peace and even of his neck, took his stand with the revolutionaries. Life with him began all over again at seventy. The older the bolder.

Carl Van Doren
--"Meet Dr. Franklin" in Van Deusen, ed., Readings in American History

Finding and making the time for self-education

When I picked up War and Peace from a bookstore one winter afternoon as I was leaving college for winter break, all sorts of doubts ran through my head. War and Peace is one of those books that everyone is aware of and respects, but few actually read. As a friend likes to say, it’s a book one would like to “have read.” The book contains over 500 characters and plenty of theoretical digressions about history, war, military strategy, and the dynamics of human life. My edition, the Norton Critical, ran to 1,070 pages.

One of the biggest doubts I had about cracking open War and Peace was the familiar dilemma of time. First: our time on earth is limited and finite - why should we spend it reading monstrously large books? And in a smaller and more practical sense, my vacation was limited and finite - why should I spend it reading War and Peace instead of playing Playstation?

I suspect that everyone runs into similar doubts when they are deciding how to spend their time, and that the eternal dilemma of limited time is one major reason why so few individuals choose to continue reading, studying, and actively learning after their formal schooling is completed. Each of us is “busy” and faced with countless competing demands upon our finite number of hours. Every time we act or do not act, we “spend” time, and spent time can never be recovered. Just as we become poorer each time we hand over cash to a store or restaurant, we become older each time we watch a movie, read a book, or attend a party. Few things are as precious as our time, and it matters how we choose to spend it.

Nevertheless, however, I decided that reading War and Peace would be a worthwhile way to spend the 30-40 hours over the course of 13 days that it took me to finish it. I suspected – rightly, it turns out – that the book would enthrall and entertain me, make me a bit wiser, give me a bit more insight into human life, and share with me the insights of one of the most profound thinkers and beautiful writers who ever lived. These benefits outweighed the “opportunity cost” of forgoing other activities in favor of reading it

We go through this sort of cost-benefit analysis each time we decide how to allocate the hours of our day, and so a crucial step on the road to becoming a self-educator is to recognize the value of learning and to keep that in mind at all times. I find that self-education gives my life meaning and constantly provides me with new lenses through which to view and understand the world. Having made that judgment, it is easier to make the call to read War and Peace instead of doing something more "fun."

I have been speaking in terms of allocating the hours of one’s day and the weeks of one’s vacation, but self-education can also take place on a much smaller scale. We all waste large amounts of our day standing in lines, sitting in waiting rooms, and "zoning out."

But as Barry Farber explains in his How to Learn Any Language - an incredible resource for self-educators, language learners, and language teachers - we can actually put these “hidden moments” to work in the cause of self-education. If you are going on a long walk, bike ride, or drive, try listening to podcasts or audio books instead of your playlist of familiar music. Bring a good book next time you have to sit in a waiting room or wait for a flight.

There are two ways self-educators can change the way they think about their time: First, recognize the value of learning and self-educating, and plan to spend some of your leisure time accordingly. And second, understand that you have more free time than you might suspect, and begin finding ways to put those hidden moments to productive use.

Interview: Self-Educator Race Bannon (Part 2 of 2)

What do you see as the importance of reading? Is reading necessary to self-education, or could self-educators who dislike reading substitute other media and skip reading entirely? Must we still read books? How do you decide what to read?

This is a tough one. I am such a book person that I know my answer will be biased. There is a certain linear structure to the book form that presents information in a logical, progressive way that other forms may not. With that said, I think reading, in any form, is vital to learning. Why? Because I consider words to be the foundation of all learning. Yes, the spoken form can relay information without the need to read, but my instincts tell me incorporating the read and spoken word into a self-education regimen maximizes learning.

Other media certainly has its place though. And as technology increases those options I’m sure that books will take a seat alongside, rather than in front of, other learning options. As this happens I would personally continue to recommend the value of books, but I think I will have to succumb to the notion that true learning can take place without books.

I decide what to read in lots of ways. When bookstores were more common and contained broader selections than they do today, I would spend hours roaming the aisles and scanning the books. Nowadays I often do the same thing virtually on Amazon.com. I carry a notepad with me at all times and I write down titles and authors whenever I hear of something interesting.

What role do other people play in your self-education? Do you find that conversations and other exchanges with other people can be educative, and if so, do you seek out such exchanges?

For me, knowledge without human interactivity is useless knowledge. I’m not one who believes knowledge for its own sake is the ideal. Knowledge should serve mankind. Yes, there is value in learning about something simply to satisfy one’s own curiosity, but ultimately knowledge should serve some purpose even if only on the individual level.

My conversations with people do two specific things for me. First, they expose me to new subjects, new insights, new perspectives that I might not stumble upon on my own. This often instigates the beginning of a self-education project for me. Second, once I’ve embarked on a learning path, I use people with knowledge about something to help me fill in the blanks and to place that knowledge within a real-life context.

Do you follow current events, and if so, where do you get your news? Why did you select those sources? Do you feel that it is important to follow current events and/or participate in political debate, and if so, why?

I am somewhat of a news junkie. Passive listening to mainstream news outlets, on television in particular, do little to inform me in the robust way I need to be informed. My preferred method is to read and watch on the web and I try to mix up the sources. I start every morning with a scan of these sites: sfgate.com (for my local newspaper’s online edition), cnn.com (the closest thing we have to unbiased major news media in my opinion), huffingtonpost.com (for left-leaning news and blogs), thedailybest.com (for the moderate viewpoint), techcrunch.com, cnet.com and wired.com (for technology news). I also subscribe to Google newsfeeds on various topics and the summaries of related news shows up daily in my email inbox.

I feel it’s vital to follow current events and be part of the political debate because I consider it an individual’s responsibility in a civilized society.

What books, movies, music, art, websites, or other media would you recommend to other self-educators, that is, to other people who want to make a conscious effort to learn more, discover more, and expand their minds? List as many resources as you like, but be sure to place emphasis on those you most strongly recommend.

OK, I’ll get the blatant self promotion out of the way first and suggest my blog at artofselfeducation.com. Wikipedia.com is extremely useful. My favorite website of all time is ted.com and a great education can be achieved by simply listening to the presentations streamed from that site.

I also think everyone should become skilled at doing targeted advanced searches on web search engines. Most people only tap the most basic power of search engines and if they simply learned a few tricks to narrow and focus their searches the resources they’d come up with would be dramatically superior to the standard results.

I love so many books it’s hard to recommend even a few. What I do recommend is that people adopt the approach of reading a few books well rather than just reading a lot of books. A single good book read well and with thought and introspection is of far more value than a dozen books read quickly and without deep engagement and thought.

Other thoughts and insights?

None I can think of at the moment except to thank you for doing the work you’re doing. Fostering self-education in any way does society a great service.

Wide Awake Minds Interviews: Self-educators and their stories

I am currently interviewing self-educators in order to tell their stories on Wide Awake Minds (www.wideawakeminds.com) and in The Wide-Awake Mind: An Invitation to Self-Education.

Please email me if you would like to be interviewed, or if you know someone whom I ought to interview. I can send you an email with writing prompts, or we can conduct the interview over the phone. Alternatively, you can click here to look at the interview questions and copy and paste the questions and your responses into an email.

I can't wait to gather your stories and share them with the world. Whatever you do to test your intellectual limits, pursue your curiosity, or explore the world of art and literature, chances are good that if you are reading this, you have some experience as a self-educator (or "autodidact"). Share it with us so that we can learn from your example and your methods.

Self-Education: A Manifesto

I am currently writing my first book - The Wide-Awake Mind: An Invitation to Self-Education - and I ought to clarify what I mean by the term "self-education."

Self-education is at once a mindset, a lifestyle, and an action. It is both something that can be engaged in unconsciously and a habit that can be cultivated. For instance, a person can self-educate by going to the coffeeshop with a stack of books and reading, or by unconsciously choosing forms of entertainment that happen to be educational – say, high-quality films, travel, theater, lectures, backpacking, or deep conversations. Just as you can develop the habit of healthy eating or exercise, you can develop the habit of regularly reading, becoming more alert to and curious about your surroundings, and seeking out educational experiences beyond the confines of your comfort zone.

To be a self-educator does not mean to turn away from teachers. It means to embrace teachers and learning opportunities wherever they occur – whether in the classroom, in family settings, at work, with friends, in nature, or anywhere else. Embracing self-education as a philosophy and a lifestyle means growing beyond the idea of education as schooling that you may have inherited from society; it means understanding that education is a lifelong endeavor. It is not primarily the means to a degree or a job, although it may also play that role. Instead, it is both an end in itself and a means to and method of a more fulfilling life, a life that embraces the wide world of knowledge and ideas that moves beneath the surface of daily existence. The self-educator chooses the option of engaged participation in this world and rejects the option of disengaged apathy.

A self-educator strives to experience life and the world as a beautiful gift rather than as simply “what is given,” the “way things are,” and he or she realizes that the proper stance toward the world is one of curiosity and openness. Such a person can discover beautiful things in literature, in mathematics, in science, in art, in music, or in architecture that are not disclosed to those whose eyes have been closed by apathy or by a belief that their education is “complete” because they have earned some slip of paper (whether a diploma or a doctorate).

And the fields of knowledge are not a finite source of beautiful things, but an infinite source; the books and poems and monuments and recordings of the world constitute a far greater pool of knowledge than anyone could learn in many lifetimes, and worlds of knowledge are constantly changing, expanding, and being discovered. In that sense, we are at an especially fortunate moment in human history: the processes of globalization and the modern world’s advances in economics and technology, though their negative consequences must be faced squarely and fully understood, have given us a situation in which those who are a part of the “connected” world have unprecedented access to sources of knowledge in cultures across the world. Ideas and people are more mobile and accessible than ever before.

Self-education is not usually or necessarily a solitary endeavor, and the best self-educators make the most of whatever resources are at their disposal – including teachers, courses, and traditional schooling. Self-educators who are enrolled in a K-12 school or university should learn everything they can from their teachers, professors, and fellow students. At the same time, they should always remember to see beyond the structures of the school and keep in mind that they are getting only fragments and tastes of the world of ideas, and that however much they learn, the totality of what they know will always pale alongside the infinite weight of what they do not know. No degree or academic achievement can change that basic fact.

The decision to become a self-educator can transform a person’s experience in school. Graduation comes to represent not the end of one’s education, but simply one stepping-stone on a journey that ought to last until the end of one’s life. “Down-time” in and between classes comes to represent a rare, treasured opportunity to study one’s own interests. And grades, once a thing to be dreaded, come to be seen as what they are – not a reflection of your personal worth or ability in a subject, but a sorting mechanism that classifies some as more or less promising students for the purposes of getting jobs and admission to academic programs. Education is infinitely more than that; it is not something reducible to school attendance, grades, degrees, or other features of contemporary schooling.

Becoming a self-educator means cultivating the habit of lifelong learning, that is, cultivating a wide-awake mind. A wide-awake mind is a mind alert to educational opportunities in everyday life, a mind curious and eager to explore these opportunities, and a mind disciplined enough to follow through on its curiosity by making time for extended study of the areas it is interested in.

Please email me to share your self-education stories; as part of my research for The Wide-Awake Mind: An Invitation to Self-Education, I plan to interview self-educators of all ages and backgrounds. Their stories will appear on this blog and in the book. Thank you for reading, and please help spread the word about Wide Awake Minds by linking to this site and passing it on to others who might be interested.

On language learning textbooks

Over the years, I've accumulated a decent library of world language textbooks and readers. Even those I do not get around to studying usually yield some benefit - I can get a feel for the sound and structure of each language with only a few hours of reading, and such kernels of knowledge can often serve as bridges and conversation-starters with native speakers. And then there is the physical presence of the books: the diversity of the languages represented is a reminder of all the things I hope to study and places I hope to travel.

I have also learned something from the texts about the many ways foreign languages can be taught and how teaching methods have changed over time. The improvement in recording technologies has revolutionized language learning; it is difficult to imagine, but many earlier students of world languages had to study without ever hearing their target language spoken. Today, the primary (and, in my experience, most effective) method of instruction is to have the student listen to and memorize conversations carried on by native speakers in various contexts (the train station, the post office, the dinner table, etc.). Grammar is learned intuitively; one comes to understand the workings of the past tense by hearing a voice actor discuss his or her day at work. It’s a long way from the older methods, still used in the most widely disseminated Latin and Greek textbooks (Wheelock’s and Mastronarde’s), of memorizing paradigm after paradigm and carrying out drill after drill.

Language textbooks are invariably infused with knowledge of the cultures where the language is spoken. For instance, Latin is learned through readings about the orations of senators and the deeds of heroes and gods; Norwegian is learned by listening in on the conversation of tourists in Oslo who are admiring the sculptures in the Frognerparken; and Italian is learned through texts about the history of coffee or the many courses of an Italian dinner. Most dialogues in contemporary language textbooks have settings - some are universal, but many are specific to a particular time and place. It’s hard to imagine an elementary Russian textbook that does not teach the reader how to ask for directions to Red Square.

The experience of learning how to find one’s way around the Kremlin, and “asking” directions during the lulls on the audio track provided for that purpose, with soft voices and the sound of traffic in the background to add authenticity, is qualitatively different from the experience of reading about Red Square in a history book or travel guide. In secondhand accounts, the reader is one more step removed from the experience of physically being in Moscow. The language learner, however, can to some extent simulate that experience. And if one’s attitude when reading secondhand accounts of another place’s history and culture is one of looking upon a culture from “above,” one’s attitude as a language learner is much more humble. Even the cows of ancient Greece understand Attic Greek better than we ever will, someone once quipped. There is some truth to that. The student of languages is a student in the fullest sense of the word; his highest aspiration is to speak a language as well as a native speaker - any native speaker, regardless of age or station. He may believe, consciously or not, that there individuals in his home culture with whom he has nothing to discuss and from whom he has nothing to learn - but abroad he is stripped of that elitist attitude, because everyone reads, writes, and speaks better than him.

I continue to learn a lot and derive a great deal of pleasure from my library of language textbooks, and I’ve become a collector almost by accident; the collection is a byproduct of two of the things I love most: languages and books. By letting go of the dream of ever mastering all the languages represented in my collection, I have given myself a freer hand to purchase the old Russian text with “Printed in the Soviet Union” stamped in red ink on the frontispiece, and the grossly outdated handbook of Japanese grammar written to assist American servicepeople in the postwar occupation of Japan. Even if these are all but useless as instruments of language study, they serve a different purpose by providing that pleasure of owning something rare that is the province and privilege of the collector.

NYT's Kristof offers a reading list for kids

I am a fan of New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. Many political writers become caught up in day-to-day partisan spats or adopt a too-conventional set of political principles. Kristof, however, remains remarkably focused on the things that really matter - things like international human rights, modern-day slavery and human trafficking, poverty, and education.

And so Kristof's column in tomorrow's Times is about neither Michael Jackson nor Sarah Palin; it's about the sad fact that kids' IQs and reading abilities fall over the summer break because they are not, for the most part, reading or using their brains when they are not in school. He offers a list of ten of the "best kids' books ever."

I would add to his list:

-The Giver (Lois Lowry).
-Bridge to Terabithia (Katherine Paterson).
-Everything by Roald Dahl, especially Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and The BFG.
-Sideways Stories from Wayside School series (Louis Sachar).
-His Dark Materials trilogy (Philip Pullman).
-Indian in the Cupboard trilogy (Lynne Reid Banks).
-Encyclopedia Brown series (Donald J. Sobol).
-The Chronicles of Narnia series. (C.S. Lewis).
-The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, and The Missing Piece (Shel Silverstein).
-Maniac Magee (Jerry Spinelli).
-Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh).
-Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder).
-Shiloh (Phyllis Reynolds Naylor).
-The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams).

I appreciate that Kristof's first thought about the summer achievement slide wasn't a policy idea such as lengthening the school year. Children and their parents must take charge of their own education during their breaks: they must become explorers and self-educators and resist the lethargic, easy option of becoming zombies in front of television and computer screens.

Over the years I've become more and more attracted to the idea that a central purpose of K-12 education must be to turn students into readers. And readers, that is, of books - not just blogs or RSS feeds or Tweets or "interactive stories" or graphic novels.

The sine qua non of self-education and lifelong learning is the habit of reading deeply, broadly, and well.

Jean Roemer on self-education

An excerpt from a rare book I stumbled upon in the University of Chicago's Regenstein library a few years ago:

"One of the chief characteristics of a good method consists in enabling learners to dispense with the assistance of a teacher when they are capable of self-government. It should be so contrived as to excite and direct their spontaneous efforts, and lend them to the conviction that they have the power, if they have the will, to acquire whatever man has acquired.

…The most extensive education given by the most skilful masters often produces but inferior characters; that alone which we give to ourselves elevates us above mediocrity. The eminence attained by great men is always the result of their own industry."

Jean Roemer
--Polyglot Reader and Guide for Translation