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
Self-educator's hometowns: Bethesda, MD and Cottonwood, CA
Self-educator's age: 29
Date: 30 August 2009
(Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of interviews Wide Awake Minds will be conducting with educators and self-educators. If you enjoy these interviews or other material on this blog, please consider linking to us, mentioning us on Facebook and Twitter, and emailing and sharing our articles. If you would like to share your story as an educator or self-educator, please contact me. Thanks for reading!)
WAM: Why should we be curious? What ought we to be curious about? What forms does your own curiosity take? If you are curious about something – say, an academic subject or the way something works – do you follow up on that curiosity by studying?
WG: At its most basic level, curiosity is probably something that has evolved in humans because it helps us survive and forces us to explore and learn new things. Here’s a simple example of how being curious caused me to learn new knowledge that made my life easier. Before my deployment to Iraq as an embedded military advisor with an Iraqi infantry unit, I was very curious about Iraqi culture. My curiosity encouraged me to learn and understand how Iraqis thought about the world. Throughout my deployment, my knowledge of the culture (and language) helped me convince the Iraqis soldiers that planning before missions was important, torturing prisoners is not always the best idea, and wearing body armor makes sense (even in 130 degree weather).
My knowledge of the culture, which stemmed from an initial curiosity, even saved my life at one point. I was on patrol with some Iraqi soldiers in Haditha, Iraq. We were on a look-out post in a local’s home scanning for insurgents placing bombs in the road. While the soldiers were upstairs, I stayed on the first floor and chatted with the family to get intelligence information. My American instincts encouraged me to discuss business and the current operation at hand, but my knowledge of the culture told me otherwise: I needed to talk about family, life, and the softer side of the world if I was to create a good impression with the Iraqi family and get any valuable information. My efforts were successful. As we were leaving the family’s home, one of the young boys hinted to us that an ambush was set up for us on our current patrol route and that we should reroute through the palm groves. We followed the young boy’s advice and dodged a very bad situation.
If I had not been curious about Iraqi culture and never took the steps to become knowledgeable, I would probably not be alive today. Curiosity doesn’t always kill the cat.
WAM: What do you understand the term “self-education” (or “autodidacticism”) to mean? Do you think of it as a philosophy or lifestyle, or simply as an action? Please explain what it means to you.
WG: Learning new things is something I love - the more I learn, the better. Unfortunately, it’s unrealistic to always have a teacher on hand at my beckoning call, so self-education is mandatory. Now that the internet is overflowing with video lectures, course notes, and self-contained learning packages, it’s hard not to be excited about the future of self-education.
WAM: Does the description of the self-educator’s mind as a “wide-awake mind” resonate with you? Why?
WG: I think it does. Self-education takes an extra level of discipline and effort from the individual since they are actively trying to teach themselves something new - these folks certainly have "wide-awake minds." In contrast, a student sitting in the lecture hall zoning out and thinking about the previous night’s fraternity party as the professor lectures probably has a "sleepy mind."
WAM: What are your past and present methods of self-education? Which have you found most effective? Do you use the Internet or other technology to self-educate or expand your intellectual horizons?
WG: In the past, the local or university library was my main hangout when I needed to learn about something I was interested in. These days I work almost exclusively through the web — my guess is that I haven’t checked a book out from the library in over a year! The Internet has truly revolutionized information sharing, and Google and Wikipedia have figured out how to organize it all in a reasonably coherent manner (or at least they have done a reasonable job so far).
WAM: What is or was your profession? Did you self-educate on the job or as part of your job? Did you see your work as complementary to or a distraction from your interests and education? If your self-education took place largely outside of the workplace, how did you make time for it?
WG: I spent my four years in the military, which had nothing to do with my formal education (which was focused on economics and math). Needless to say, a large portion of my knowledge in the military was self-taught. There is even a saying in the military that there is no excuse for a young lieutenant to not have a 3000 year old mind - all they need to do is read the history of battles over the years, or in other words, self-educate!
My current profession is in the field of finance. I run a small hedge fund and plan on going on the academic job market this year in the hope of landing a job as a finance professor at a top MBA program. Self-education is absolutely essential in this field. I haven't taken a formal class in finance in years, and yet my knowledge in the subject is still fairly robust because of all my self-education efforts.
WAM: Who are your educational, intellectual, artistic, and moral role models?
WAM: What is your formal educational background? How did you feel about your formal education?
WG: I received a BS in Economics at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002, and I expect to complete a Ph.D./MBA in Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2010.
My formal education was focused on learning skills that I could actually use to pay the bills. I figured that since I was paying for that education I should at least get the greatest return possible.
When it comes to self-education I spent a lot more time learning about things that really don’t translate into income: astronomy, military history, politics, world cultures, travel adventures, etc. Of course, self-education doesn’t cost me much either so I have the luxury to indulge in some areas I probably wouldn’t if I was still worried about paying the bills.
WAM: 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?
WG: I am a huge fan of message boards, collaboration, and thinking through problems in teams. If given the opportunity to indulge in self-education, I focus on the areas where I can learn new things with others.
WAM: 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?
WG: I follow current events religiously - specifically economic and geopolitical news.
My news sources and commentary primarily come from a hand-selected group of around 500 blogs/outlets I have been collecting for the past four or five years. I’ve tried to make my collection of sources as diverse and well rounded as possible to avoid bias, group-think, and a variety of other psychological pitfalls from which I suffer. I synthesize all these blogs in an efficient manner via Google Reader.
MIT and Berkeley have excellent open source access to lecture notes, videos, and material for almost all of their courses. I am also a huge fan of YouTube and Google. If I’m ever interested in a topic I simply “google” it and can usually find a group of lectures or insightful media on the topic.
Here are a few of the sites I visit for self-education (mostly economics-related):
WG: Education is really the key to leveling the playing field and giving everyone at least a reasonable shot at success in this world. The Internet has created an epic leap forward in our ability to give everyone a shot at learning (redistribution efforts and handout systems don't work effectively).
If I were reinventing public policy with respect to education I would start with the following:
1. Provide and subsidize access to the Internet with a huge emphasis on improving users' ability to access information and educational content.
2. Provide instruction and guidance on self-education and how easy it is with the internet.
3. Provide incentives for people to be curious: religion, culture, and society always find ways to keep people in their place and think inside the box. The more we can encourage free speech and free thought, the better!
Thank you, Wes, for your time and for the good work you do.
Please take a moment to visit Wes's blog and check out his book at Amazon.com. If you enjoyed this interview, consider posting it to your Facebook wall or emailing it to a friend.
How can high-school teachers maximize learning time for students with short attention spans? Here's an idea.
When students drift off and stop paying attention to a lesson, they often look around at other areas of the classroom - anywhere but where the teacher wants them to look. The lawn-mower in the window was a particular favorite of mine in high school: the hypnotic back-and-forth movement and the pleasant drone could keep me occupied during a long hour of history class.
Teachers, when they set up their classroom, should aim to make it utterly impossible for kids to look anywhere in the room without learning something. Fine, don't look at the teacher - look at the maps and timelines on the wall, or the art, or the quotations from famous figures, or the posters depicting famous photographs and historical events. Or the rows of books that cover a wall - some with their spines out, some faced-out. You don't even need to open them to be intrigued by their titles: "The Philosophy of History" by G.W.F. Hegel; "The Open Society" by Karl Popper; "The Educated Imagination" by Northrop Frye; "Tales of Love and Loss" by Knut Hamsun; "Confessions of a Mask" by Yukio Mishima.
What about vocabulary terms in size 100 type? A garden, with the plants and vegetables labeled? An aquarium? Phrase charts in foreign languages?
Managers of retail stores are taught to never show their fixtures - to cover every inch of shelves and pegs with products. Products are for sale; fixtures are not. Showing the customer an empty shelf sells no books.
The same principle applies in the classroom. Empty wall space gives you no educational return-on-investment; in fact, bare walls evoke feelings of confinement and claustrophobia. Fill empty spaces. The classroom is not a modern, minimalist design studio: it is an attic and workshop for independent scholars with crackling, eager minds. A classroom's walls should contribute to students' impression that schooling is not a world unto itself, but rather an introduction and guide to the greater world of ideas, art, and informed action.
Wide Awake Minds is a resource for people who love to learn and teach. It celebrates the work of educators and self-educators, explores ideas about pedagogy and education policy, and promotes entrepreneurship in education as well as lifelong learning, serious reading, and the liberal arts.
Wide Awake Minds is a project of Ryan McCarl. Ryan is a writer, attorney, and former high school history teacher as well as the founder of WordBrewery, a language-learning website and app.
If you enjoy Wide Awake Minds, please take a moment to "like" our Facebook page, link to us on your blog or social network, or pass the site along to someone who might be interested in reading it. Thank you, as always, for reading.
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