In a previous post I visited the question of what education is. However, as I’ve been writing a lot about self-education on this blog, today I again had to pause and think about exactly how I define what an education is. Is it a set of skills and knowledge that prepares us for employment? Is it more than that? If so, what else is it? If I am to continue writing effectively about self-education, I needed to square with myself exactly what I think education is or else all of my future writing will be muddled and unfocused.

As I pondered this, I did what I often do – searched the web. I found the first online dictionary definition somewhat concerning. “[Education is] the activity of educating people in schools, colleges, and universities, and all the policies and arrangements concerning this.” (macmillandictionary.com) Really, I thought? Is the delivery mechanism for learning, such as schools and colleges, really what education is? The entry went on to further define education as “someone’s experience of learning or being taught,” “relating to education,” “the activity of teaching about a particular subject,” and “the process of providing people with information about an important issue.” I felt these definitions lacking, but to be fair to MacMillan, virtually every dictionary I consulted had similar entries.

With all due respect to the dictionaries of the world that provide a vital and often unheralded service to mankind (I use them constantly), I felt I needed something more meaningful as a definition if it was to propel me to continue writing passionately about self-education.

We often hear of the “educated person” or “pursuing an education” and the dry, dictionary definitions I was encountering don’t seem to adequately explain to me what such terms mean. To me, education is more about personal development and self-improvement than anything else. Yes, it can have utilitarian usefulness for employment and other pursuits, but ultimately I think education’s greatest accomplishment is when it makes a person better in some way. Perhaps that’s why I think subjects such as philosophy and interpersonal skills deserve their rightful place alongside the likes of accounting and computer programming if the desired end result is a truly educated, well-rounded person.

So, here’s the definition I intend to keep in my mind as I write about self-education. Maybe you’ll find it useful too as your pursue your own self-directed learning.

Education is both the end result, and the process of, learning with the best focus of such learning on improving someone’s knowledge base, analytical capabilities and skill sets in order to improve both their personal and professional lives.

Admittedly, that’s a mouthful and sounds a bit academic. And it’s far from perfect. Perhaps I’ll refine the definition over time as I mull this over more. But for now, this is the definition I’m going to work from and if this definition serves you well also, please feel free to use it too.

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts about what education is to you.

In recent weeks I’ve heard a lot of discussion on television, radio and social media about whether it’s worth the cost and time to attend college. What’s at the heart of these discussions and why are they becoming more prevalent? The answer is money.

As with so much in life these days, cost often becomes the factor that influences a trend. Raise the price of gas, people drive less. Raise the price of cigarettes, people smoke less. Raise the price of a college education, and more people will reconsider going to college. Alternative paths to an education and career are now rising to the top of viable education options. The price of a college education is climbing dramatically and that is putting it out of the reach of a significant number of people.

The University of California system recently raised the cost of student fees by 32%. 32%! That’s an incredible jump in cost and no one seems to think such increases are going to slow down anytime soon. The University of California is not a unique situation. Soaring costs are happening in higher educational institutions across the United States.

What this means is that alternative ways of obtaining an education are going to rise in popularity. I think this is a good thing. For too long the Holy Grail of education has been the traditional college education to the exclusion of any other seriously considered options. I think the current atmosphere of escalating college costs combined with the exponential increase in the pace of new knowledge and skills needed to remain competitive in the modern workplace is creating a perfect storm for change.

Without a doubt, a college education is the right choice for many. But when that is not a viable option for someone, or when someone’s life or professional goals don’t necessitate a college eduction, self-education can prove quite valuable.

Technology marches forward at an amazing pace. And it’s technology that’s going to continue to revolutionize the opportunities for self-education. What will continue to be the primary driver for the democratization and accessibility of education is technology.

For example, examine a technology like MyEdu that lets college students design, manage and navigate their higher education by enabling them to rather easily pick the best professors, design a class schedule that works for them, balance their work and social life, and more. Imagine the effort all of that would have taken just a few years ago. Now, through the power of technology, a student can do it all with the click of a mouse. Maybe they can use the time saved to spend more time learning.

Yes, MyEdu’s technology is focused on college students, not necessarily specifically self-education, but I’m sure similar technologies will be developed that offer the same type of functionality to self-educators. And technologies exist today that are already revolutionizing self-education. Open source software. Powerful search engines. Massive databases and archives. Social media. E-Learning. Video on demand. Free recorded lectures and presentations (check out TED, my favorite learning resource). Wikipedia. Networked groups. Highly portable computing power. The list is long and growing larger every day, offering the self-educator more ways to learn better.

I call this trend the emergence of Self-Service Education. Students will increasingly pull education to them rather than waiting for educational institutions to push learning content out. Students will identify what they want to learn and technology will empower them with the tools to deliver the appropriate learning directly to them without the need for intermediaries.

What I wonder about is when the tipping point will be reached. At what point will the predominance of learning take place in this manner with formal, institutional learning loosening its grip on its historically monopolistic approach to how we educate people? There’s no way to know. Formal education will always be with us, and it deserves its rightful place among the education options. But self-service education is here and its growth will continue to challenge formal, classroom-based learning until the optimal balance between informal and formal learning occurs. I wonder what that balance will look like? It’s an exciting time for education and an exciting time to be a self-educator.

I hear a constant refrain on many fronts that somehow technology is the enemy of true education. However, I see so many upsides to technology and how it can be used to promote more and better education. Sylvia Martinez’ post, Your Brain Might Freeze That Way, expresses my frustration with complaints about technology better than I can. Read it and let me know what you think.

I ran across this quote by one of my favorite playwrights, David Mamet, as I was reading Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? (The book is great and I’ll post a review of it soon.)

The quote applies to much of life, and it most certainly applies to self-education. If you wholeheartedly embrace the industrial model, including the industrial model of education that our current formal system of education is based upon, you will not fully embrace you and your uniqueness. Your education, like everything you pursue, must be undertaken to maximize your individuality, not minimize it as the industrial model will continually try to do.

Here’s the quote from Mamet. I hope you find it inspiring.

Do not internalize the industrial model. You are not one of the myriad of interchangeable pieces, but a unique human being, and if you’ve got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you’re learning to say it better.

As readers of this blog know, TED is my favorite website. I’ve sent my readers to that site to view many of the short talks given by some of the world’s most brilliant and inspiring people.

Well, now I’m sending you to one of their blog postings. It’s the first in TED’s series of community-driven question and answer sessions with notable people. The first notable person to whom they pose questions is creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson.

Sir Ken Robinson is the author of one of my favorite books, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. I find Mr. Robinson quite inspiring and I hope you do too.

In Daniel H. Pink’s book, Drive, one of the main points he emphasizes is that true motivation comes from an individual feeling they have three elements present during their efforts:

• Autonomy – the ability to control their destiny to the greatest extent possible.
• Mastery – the opportunity to truly master one or more domains of knowledge or skill.
• Purpose – a meaningful reason behind their efforts.

I agree with Pink’s assertions and realized while I was reading his book that self education fits nicely into his motivation paradigm.

No form of learning gives you more autonomy than self education. Whether you call it informal learning, self-directed learning, project-based learning, or some other flavor of self education, the level of autonomy these approaches offer is significant. Formal education often takes autonomy out of the educational equation.

Self education fosters mastery. Without the constraints of a predetermined curriculum agenda, we can learn as much about a topic as we wish. Going deeply into a particular area of study is one of the luxuries self education offers. Formal education curriculum tends to want to move you along at a certain pace and in a certain order. If you want to go off on a tangent and study something in more depth, you’ll be left behind and you’ll be judged as not keeping up.

Education efforts we undertake on our own typically have an identified purpose in our lives, even if that purpose is simple curiosity. Self educators tend not to waste time on subjects that have little relevance to their lives. So a sense of purpose tends to encourage our learning in ways that a rigid set of curriculum guidelines or degree requirements often do not.

True motivation is energizing. Getting a good grade or getting an annual bonus at work might appear to be good motivational tools, but research doesn’t support this contention. Real motivation requires that the elements of autonomy, mastery and purpose be present and self education provides these three things in abundance.

Yesterday I overheard someone at my local coffee shop talking about his education. He began to rattle off the schools he attended and the degree and certifications he holds. Never did he actually mention what he knew, what skills he possessed or what experience he had with any particular domain of knowledge. No, he made the mistake so many people make. He equated education with diplomas, degrees and certifications. They are not the same.

Education is whatever knowledge, experience and skill you possess regardless of how they were attained. Hopefully an education ultimately brings about some semblance of wisdom as well. It has no inherent connection to how you learned what you know. Your education might result from formal schooling, reading, your profession, volunteer work, personal projects, casual interactions, media or discussions with others. Gaining an education happens constantly throughout our lives if we open up to the educational possibilities. There are as many approaches to learning as there are people.

It’s risky to equate education with schooling. Education is the goal. Formal schooling is but one of many methods by which that goal might be attained. Obviously I’m a proponent of carving out your own path to an education that’s meaningful to you. Education is what’s important, not how we get it. If we focus on the process and not the desired outcome, we become easy prey to schools and training organizations that care more about churning out graduates than they do in facilitating a quality education. That’s not a recipe for an educated society.

These days a popular term has emerged in learning circles – social learning. It’s not an entirely new term. Discussion about social learning has roots going back as early as the late 1800’s. In recent times it has become somewhat synonymous with social media learning. While learning theorists will rightfully disagree that the two terms mean the same thing, common usage has blurred the meanings and the two are now often used interchangeably.

Social learning is currently a hot topic in the corporate world. Many organizations are adopting social learning practices that focus on employees often learning best from peers and internal subject-matter experts. Collaborative and multi-faceted learning is the key to social learning. Mechanisms such as communities of practice, wikis, blogs, discussion groups and expert directories are being used to bring about more efficient and useful learning in the workplace.

Outside of the workplace, social learning takes place in similar ways with a contemporary focus on social media as the primary vehicle to loosely organize and facilitate this type of learning. Again, the focus is on learning from others in an informal manner.

Whether taking place in the workplace or in other aspects of our lives, social learning is a concept that will only grow over time as we network further with each other and in more robust and intricate ways. Technology will continue to facilitate social learning to the point where I believe it will significantly challenge, head-to-head, traditional classroom approaches to learning. A tipping point is approaching at which time social learning will be considered a viable alternative to classroom-based education. I look forward to that day.

However, when talking about social learning, it’s important to remember that social learning is really a subset of the larger topic of self education. Informal learning, self-directed learning, social learning and social media learning are all so closely related to each other that we must continue to think of them within the context of the broader topic of self education.

I believe self education is the future cornerstone of all education. In truth, it always has been, but the dominance of formal education in the community consciousness has been so overwhelming that it’s drowned out any reasonable discussion of self education until fairly recently. I hope the rise of social learning’s importance will help to usher in a new era of more useful, cost-effective and personally-relevant learning gained primarily through self education.

People who work in the instructional design or training field know of the concept of test outs. A test out is a test someone takes to determine if they have the prerequisite knowledge or skill necessary to take a particular course or module of training. In other words, the test out determines if the person already has the appropriate amount of foundation knowledge to take the class.

I think the time has come for the test out concept to be broadened. If someone can take a test to demonstrate adequate knowledge about something, why can’t there be test outs for virtually every subject area taught in schools today. Not every area of study would be a perfect fit for the test out, but most would.

Traditional higher education institutions have already adopted the test out concept to some extent. For example, many colleges and universities accept passing scores on College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) tests as adequate evidence of knowledge in subject areas such as literature, history, science and mathematics and they award college credit for those passing marks. However, they place a limit on the number of college credits that can be attained using such testing. Why? If I can demonstrate 30 hours of college-level knowledge using a test out, why can’t I do the same for up to 120 hours of knowledge (the average number of credits required for a degree at most colleges)?

Sure, there are some areas of study I wouldn’t want to leave entirely to test outs to prove competence. I don’t think I’d want a surgeon operating on me who only took a bunch of tests to get his degree. And I don’t think I’d want a lawyer representing me who never engaged in legal theory debate with others studying the field. But for many other professions I’d be quite comfortable with people proving their competence through testing.

There are certainly problems with the test out concept. I’d have concerns that we’d once again go down the road of the overly certified society and not value self education adequately because we’re awarding credit only for those who pass a test doled out by some “official” entity. But I’m also a realist. I know our society will continue to worship at the altar of the college degree for a while yet and my hope is that elevating the role of test outs might encourage more overall acceptance of self education whether gained from individual study or life experience.

If you have experience with, or thoughts about, such test outs, I’d appreciate your insights and opinion.

If you’d like to learn about earning college credit through the College-Level Examination Program (CLEP), take a look at this site and then consider buying their official study guide.

Since the focus of this blog is self education, some might think I am entirely antagonistic to formal education. Not true. In fact, I know formal education has its rightful place alongside informal education (self education), although I do feel the shift must move significantly more towards the informal.

Higher education institutions however must rethink their purpose and their process and part of this rethinking must be to move the core of all good education to that of a more liberal education. It is only through the learning of a wide cross section of ideas, principles and practices that we, as a society, will rise to our highest natures.

This applies to self education as well. Myopic focus on singular topics or singular skills to the exclusion of others will result in expertise perhaps, but not necessarily wisdom. And it’s wisdom that is in desperate short supply these days.

In the following talk delivered to the TED conference by Liz Coleman, President of Bennington College, a case is eloquently made for the necessity of reviving the liberal arts education and its accompanying mindset. Take a few moments and listen to Liz Coleman’s wise and inspiring words. I hope you take them to heart when pursuing your own education, self-directed or otherwise.

In today’s San Francisco Chronicle (my local newspaper) it was reported that due to the current state’s budget crisis the entire California State University (CSU) system of 23 campuses would not accept any new students for its upcoming spring semester. Typically, about 35,000 students enroll in the CSU system each spring. Imagine 35,000 students not able to enter that college system. This is all being done to cut $584 million from CSU’s budget. What does this say about our current higher education system? I say it’s broken. Badly broken. CSU is not the only educational institution in serious trouble.

As I read the newspaper article I at the same time reflected on the book I’m currently reading, Recovering Informal Learning: Wisdom, Judgement and Community by Paul Hager and John Halliday (book review in a future posting). The book’s main premise is that society as a whole has given formal education far more weight and importance than informal education and that the dominance needs to shift to informal learning if we’re to educate our citizenry best. This has been my contention for a long time and it’s always nice to see others concur.

So what can we do to help fix a broken higher educational system while providing individuals with the education (and proof of such education) that they need?

A bold program I call Honoring Self Education needs to be undertaken to address this issue and I recommend such programs be implemented at local levels. This would counter what appears to be a growing problem of high cost and sometimes outright inaccessibility of higher education for many potential students. So what might such programs entail? Here’s what I propose as possibilities.

• Respect for Informal Learning. First of all, the programs must be organized, strategized and implemented from a mindset of full respect for the value and efficacy of informal learning (self education or guided self education). If this sort of respect for more casual and unstructured forms of learning does not exist from the start, any program will inevitably fail.
• Centralized Learning Hubs. Cities, metropolitan areas and perhaps groupings of smaller communities need to have a centralized way to informally organize information, learners and resources to facilitate such self education and informal learning. Technology has given us the web and a web site is the most cost-effective and efficient way to do this. Such sites might contain sections on the variety of learning methods, learning groups, a database of the subject matter expertise each site member can offer to others, internship and on-the-job training opportunities, self education aids such as personal learning contracts, and anything else that might offer resources or networking for self learners. Particularly well funded local programs might have actual physical locations with an administrative office and meeting rooms. Libraries would be a logical location for such facilities.
• Business Community Outreach. While the ideal of learning for its own sake is a worthy goal, the perceived value of such local programs will be in how well the education translates into job skills and career empowerment. To do this the local organizing body must reach out to the business community to foster their agreement that, at least for certain job categories, they’ll accept from their job candidates alternative proof of knowledge and skills apart from the traditional degree and certification methods.
• Proof of Education Strategies. While offering information, strategies and resources to students engaging in self education, there must at the same time be some mechanisms in place to prove such learning. Why? Practicality necessitates such proof. Since the goal of education is often (but thankfully not always) to procure a better job or career, employers will typically need some form of proof of informally attained education. The education portfolio is one way to do this and I’ll write about this in future postings.
• Funding. Whether it comes from community fundraisers, government funds, private industry support or other means, such programs take money. Perhaps a small staff needs to be kept employed, but at the very least the website will need content maintenance and a board or other organizing body will need to direct the program.
• Community Outreach. Once a preliminary program is in place, it won’t do anyone any good until community members know about it, know what its benefits might be to them, and know how to access the program’s network and resources. Creativity is in order here. Low-cost methods like online social media, news releases, blogs and other free outreach methods should be employed before resorting to more expensive means of program advertisement. Where appropriate and fully funded, more aggressive advertising campaigns through more traditional venues can be employed.

Standardization should be resisted. Guidelines for local programs should be kept generalized and allow for each community to come up with creative solutions to the educational needs of their community members. That way each program can learn from the successes and failures of other programs so that all programs could be modified and improved over time.

So imagine this scenario. You want to learn something. Let’s say you want to improve your office administrative skills to improve your chances for employment or to get a promotion. You have three potential options. You can try to find all of the education you need through formal schooling or training. You can try to learn what you need to know entirely through self education. Or you can do some of both.

For this case, let’s imagine money is tight and the self education option is your best choice. You log on and access the Honoring Self Education (or whatever it’s called) web site. You register as a user and create your education profile. Your profile contains information about what you want to know and what you already know. This allows you to better interact and network with other self learners on the site. Maybe the site then presents you with a short questionnaire and based on your answers presents you with information and learning options tailored to your individual needs. Perhaps it produces a learning guide you can save or print. Or maybe each subject area has its own community-created (open source) learning paths that everyone on the site as well as program organizers can contribute to.

The site may direct you to specific reading materials. Networking can be leveraged by connecting you with others within the learning network who already possess the knowledge and skills you want to acquire. They can guide you and maybe mentor you during your learning. For topic areas where discussion fosters the best learning, learning groups who meet in real time or over phone/web conference meeting tools might be identified.

On the business community/learner connection section of the site you discover a local business that provides non-paid (or perhaps paid), short-term internships that allow you to learn in a real-world setting. As you talk with others in the field you discover that understanding how to use certain software programs is vital. A non-profit job center listed on the site offers free classes on those programs and you sign up.

As you do all of this learning the site encourages you to download their education portfolio template and you begin to create your own portfolio as you learn, using a 3-ring binder to contain and organize it all (or the computerized virtual equivalent). This portfolio becomes your self-created proof of your education and skills and you’ll use this along with your résumé when applying for and interviewing for future jobs.

Anyway, I think you get the idea. I’ve only touched upon a few of the many possible aspects such a program might offer to learners. The community’s collective imagination can come up with many more I’m sure.

Until local communities begin to officially embrace and facilitate such informal learning programs, the formal college, university and training center systems will dominate the culture. Formal schooling and training will push out any hope of establishing informal learning’s place within the accepted educational methods you can use to improve yourself and to improve your employability.

If anyone knows of such programs already in place, I’d love to hear about them. And if you have any ideas you’d like to contribute, I’d like to hear those too.