Treatise #6: Low-expectations Part I

Hello Readers,

I'm back! Sorry I haven't published any content for so long. Here is the first part of the final treatise that I will write this school year. It has been a wonderful year doing this writing project and I hope that you have enjoyed coming to this blog and have found value in the content presented here.

Until next time,
Dallin D. Shumway

P.S. Happy reading!

I’m a teenager. And naturally, as I’ve gotten older, I’m constantly having adults ask me; “So what grade are you in?”,  “What high school do you go to?” or, “Do you go to Layton High?” (The local high school). Once I get past explaining what grade I’m in, and that I’m not a formal high school student, I answer questions like; “So what’s your favorite subject?” Once they’re satisfied that I am getting a real education, they ask questions like; “So how do you get a social life?” I explain that I’m involved in private programs where I’m around other teens. Beyond that, as I’ve gotten older I’ve been able to connect more easily with friends of friends and the like and branch out my social circle that way.

When I’m in a situation where I’m about to be introduced to an adult I just know that these questions are bound to come up. And as each one gets asked the thought “here we go again” runs through my head and I sometimes even imagine myself rolling my eyes.

There’s another question that sometimes comes up in conversations whether I’m with adults or teens and it revolves around the subject of work. Even among some of my closest friends, I still have to remind people what I do for a job. “I run a debate program for my homeschooling community,” I tell them. It’s interesting to note the reactions I get when I mention this. In the end, people are impressed and think it’s cool that I bear the title of “teacher” at such a young age, but at the same time it can be difficult for them to wrap their heads around such a concept. And, I’ll be honest, it has been difficult for me to comprehend it at times.

Now stop for a moment, and think about the paragraphs you just read. Why do those questions get asked? and why do people react the way they do about my job?

It’s because of a mentality that our society has developed over the last century about the period of time known as “youth” or, more commonly, “teenagehood.” It is a deeply rooted societal paradigm that says the following two things:

1. Teenagers should be doing everything they can to have the funnest time of their lives.
2. As a consequence, teens are automatically irresponsible and focus all their attention on the opposite sex, social media, and pop culture.

I just opened a new tab on my Chrome browser and typed in the following google search words:

“teens and....” Here are the suggestions that came up:

• Teens and social media
• Teens and sleep
• Teens and drugs
• Teens and technology
• Teens and alcohol

Doesn’t this go right along with our societal image of a teenager? Constantly on social media, constantly sleep deprived or oversleeping, perhaps into drugs, very tech savy, and perhaps into drinking.

I went back and added a d to the sentence; “teens and d....” Here’s the suggestions I got:

• Teens and drugs
• Teens and depression
• Teens and distracted driving
• Teens and dating
• Teens and divorce

What else do you think of when you hear the word teenager? When I was younger, the word teenager made me think of a gang of long-haireds with bandanas around their heads. They would probably have skateboards and be swearing all the time.

There’s a reason why adults like to ask teens about what school they go to and what they’re doing. To begin with, it makes the adults think about their own teenage years giving them some time to reminisce about what they think were the best years of their lives.

At the same time, they’re excited for these teenagers to be able to enjoy these years themselves. But, when they talk to me, and I tell them I’m homeschooled, they suddenly get very concerned. They worry that I’m not meeting people (especially girls) and having the chance to interact with them.

And all because of the notion they have that the teen years are a time to spend having pure fun. Fun, fun, fun. It’s a time to play, take a break from life, goof off, and do as much of these things as possible before the pressures of adulthood come along and all of these “joys” are lost.

I was on group date (yes, I do go on dates in case you’re wondering, I’m not that weird of a teenager) once where about half of the people there I didn’t know. One of the young men in the group really illustrated this idea of what teenagers look like. It was interesting the contrast that existed between him and me. I talked about school, and how busy it keeps me, and how I don’t focus on other things as much because of it. He was shocked that I would rather focus on education than typical interests of teenage boys. Just after I finished a sentence about school he said to me: “No, no no. You’ve to it all wrong, let me teach you something...” He then proceeded to count on his fingers and said, one finger for each word: “Girls, cars.....” He went on nameing things that he thought I should focus all my attention on. He then told a story about how he went to Spain the previous spring and got bribed by his school teacher to kiss a bunch of teenage senoritas. “It was really fun” he said. I felt so bad for this guy because he seemed locked into a mentality that those were the main things he should be focusing on.

And the reason why he’s locked in such a mentality is because that’s what society tells him to focus on. Whose idea was it to go kiss a bunch of girls he didn’t even know anything about? His teacher’s.

This leads to the other question: why do people react shocked when they learn what I do for a job? Because that’s not something teenagers do. They aren’t responsible, can’t function professionally, and are immature. Or so society tells us.

I chose to write this treatise because I’m growing up in the midst of a pathetically apathetic age group. Society tells us that teenagers are, or aren’t certain things because it’s true. Or at least it appears to be true. Society can’t make stuff up, so it gives us information based on what it has observed. And it has observed that teenagers act in the way I have described.

The long and short of it is, most people’s teen years are a waste - an utter and complete waste.

“Now wait a minute Dallin,” you might be saying, “they’re not a waste if people spend them partying and having fun. ‘Cause if people do that, then they’ve made the most of these years before adulthood.”

This is true, if you believe that the most important thing in life is pleasure. Many is the person whose top priority, outside of making a living, is just find pleasure and fun. Think about the people you know who can only think about going to the bar after work on Friday night, and spend their entire evenings watching TV after a long day. They get their pay check, pay their rent, pay their bills, and buy their groceries. The rest of their money is squandered on beer, video games, and nicer, newer devices.

In my last treatise, the one about education, I said that education should prepare people for their unique purpose in life. If it does not do this, then by definition, it has failed in its purpose.

This same principle applies to teenagehood in general. Childhood (including teeagehood) is the time when people should prepare for adulthood. I don’t think anyone would disagree with me on that point. If this point is true, then, by definition, teenagers should be doing more than just playing around.

On top of that, if you do believe that there is a greater purpose to life than just enjoyment and staying alive, then you should be able to easily see how the teenager who has spent the years between 12 and 18 only partying has wasted a whole six years.

While society has created this image of a typical teenager, many adults have developed a picture of what a truly ideal teenager’s life looks like. Their ideal teenager is studious, always getting straight A’s, and she must, of course, get a very high score on the ACT/SAT.

She is also very talented. She plays the piano, and is successful at many extracurriculars. She might be big into drama, or soccer, or debate. She’s the captain of whatever team she’s on, and the the president of at least one class she’s in.

And of course, she listens to her teachers and is more responsible than her peers.

She goes on dates very often, and enjoys a very healthy, parental approved social life.

Does this ring a bell? I used the word “she” to describe this ideal teenager, but it could just as easily be substituted with the word “he.”

I know of many homeschooling parents that seem to try very hard to make their children out of this mold. But, are even these things what teenagehood is really about? Being seen as the best of the best?

In 2008 a website was created by two 19-year-old boys: therebelution.com. It started out when these boys, twins named Alex and Brett Harris, were 16 and had a whole summer ahead of them. They weren’t sure what to do with it. This is a common trend among teens when summer rolls around.

To help remedy the problem, their father came into the kitchen one morning and presented them with a stack of books. They would spend the summer reading them.

The books they read included The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, and The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene.

These books awakened them to a sense of the rapid change that our world is undergoing. They further realized that even though the books were written for adults, the people who really needed to hear the book’s ideas were teens. I mean, who would be leading the world at the time these rapid changes took their toll? The teens of today.

This inspired the Harris’ boys to start a blog where they could share their thoughts with those who might stumble across it. And of course a good blog needs a good name.

After some thought, they settled on the name The Rebelution. The word rebelution is one they came up with. It is a synthesis of the words rebellion and revolution, and it literally means a teenage rebellion against low expectations.

The Harris’ twins, like myself and others, noticed the label of low expectations that society places on teens. They called this label The Myth of Adolescence. They wanted to stir their peers up to rising above this label. The blog featured articles that discussed society’s low expectations for teens and the importance of overcoming such expectations.

In October of 2005, not long after their first blog had been launched, the time came for these twins to be tested; to see if they could practice what they were preaching. Their blog had garnered attention that they had probably not anticipated. New York Daily featured an article about the blog just three weeks after it was launched.

The test came when they were invited to apply for an internship with the Alabama Supreme Court. The staff attorney in charge of the intern program for one particular Supreme Court Justice had been reading their blog and was impressed by what the boys had done.

Alex and Brett’s first reaction to this invitation was that the staff attorney didn’t know how old they were. This, however, turned out to be wrong. The attorney was very much aware of the boys age. He wanted to take them up on their premise that teens waste much of the potential they have. He asked the justice he worked for if he would waive the usual age requirement for the boys and the justice agreed. Rather than look at age, he decided to look at whether or not these two high school aged twins were mature enough to do the job given them.

The Harris’ twins weren’t exactly gung-ho about such a proposition, but they decided to take a shot at practicing what they were preaching. Their applications were accepted, and they spent the few months of their internship learning, growing, and having a good time.

The justice they worked for was definitely impressed because later they would be asked to lead his re-election campaign.

Their blog continued growing, and in 2008 the Harris’ twins decided to upgrade from their humble Google hosted blog to a full on website of their own.

This fall it will have been 10 years since their blog was launched. During those years, two boys, now in their late-twenties, have worked to change the lives of countless youth, teaching them to rise up to the level of potential within them.

Their story is very inspiring, and their lives give even more examples that I could use in this treatise, but, for the sake of time, you’ll  just have you find out more for yourself. They’ve published a book, entitled Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations. Check it out on their website.

To be continued.......

Treatise #5; A Truly Superb Education Part II

Dear Readers,

Here is the second half of my fifth treatise, the first half of which I posted a couple weeks ago. I hope you enjoy it!

Happy Reading,
Dallin D. Shumway

P.S. Don't forget to comment if you have any thoughts, questions, or feedback that you would like to share.

Another purpose of education is to allow people to maintain their freedom. In my first treatise back in September, I used as an example the philosophy of a man whom I have grown to love for his outlook on the importance of quality education. This man is Dr. Ben Carson, whom I introduced a few paragraphs above.

Dr. Carson believes very strongly that an educated populace is essential for securing the freedom of any society.

He made this point in a speech he delivered at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, as quoted by me in my original treatise; The Intellectual Superstar. This is what he said; “...What will maintain our position in the world? The ability to [make] a 25 foot jump shot or the ability to solve a quadratic equation? We need to put the things into proper perspective.”

Dr. Carson did not mean that a nation can only maintain its freedom if its people are all mathematicians, but rather that an intellectual populace is a necessary component to liberty.

If you haven’t read this treatise, you can find it with the following link; http://teenagephilosoper.blogspot.com/2014/09/treatise-1-intellectual-superstar-sep.html

Plato understood this concept very well. He lived in a democracy; Ancient Athens. He taught the same idea that Dr. Carson teaches to the Athenians, explaining that because the citizens of the city made the laws (as is the case in a democracy), they needed to be educated. If any of them were ignorant, people who knew more than they would become tyrants and tell them what to do.

Think about it this way; Imagine a boy who is completely uneducated about property rights and ownership, and who doesn’t know what stealing is. This boy does some work around the house and earns some money. This money is his property; he earned it. He decides he wants to take it to the store to buy a LEGO set. On the way to the store, an older girl in the neighborhood, who knows the boy has never learned about stealing and ownership, decides to take advantage of his ignorance. She walks up to him and says; “Hey! Don’t you know that it’s Wednesday?” Taken aback, the boy responds, “Why is that important?” “Well,” says the girl, “on Wednesday, all younger children are suppose to give their money to older children. If you don’t give me your money you’ll go to jail because you broke the law.” This boy doesn’t have the common sense to see the preposterousness of such a statement due to his lack of education. Wanting to do the right thing, the boy hands over his money, and is now deprived of his LEGO’s and the fun that he could have had.

Truly superb education doesn’t neglect sound political principles and philosophy.

Another purpose of education, perhaps the most important, is the ability for each and everyone person to fulfill the measure of their creation.

We all want to make the world a better place, and we all have our very own unique gifts, talents and abilities with which we can work to create a better world. If our education fails to give us these abilities, or allow us to find them, then it has, as I said at the beginning, failed to fulfill its purpose.

The general consensus of today, as I have already said, is to get an education to get a job. But, could it be that there is more to being on this planet than just having a job to stay alive?

If so, then when and where should we enable ourselves to accomplish this mission? We seem to think that childhood is where we should prepare for adulthood, at least in terms of career preparation and general life skills (things like how to care for oneself, as well as good manners, how to interact with people, etc.). For the same reasons, this should also be the time that we learn the things we will need to be able to fulfill our mission here on earth.

If education is meant to prepare children for adulthood then a truly superb education will prepare students to be effective in fulfilling their purpose.

Finally, education should not neglect the development of personal character. Some would argue that the home should be the base for teaching character. I agree with this, but that does not mean that the same principles shouldn’t be instilled in school.

The system that I propose to teach personal character in academic settings comes from what I have been able to receive through completing the Leadership Education Mentoring Institute (LEMI) program; In these classes, students and mentors talk about the importance of what they call their “core”. In his book A Thomas Jefferson Education Dr. Oliver DeMille, renowned speaker and writer on education, speaks of what he calls the first phase of education. It takes place during early childhood, from about age 0 to 9ish (usually), and is called “core phase.” This is when the core of our character is developed. The core is the very center of an object. In many cases the strength of the object is determined by the strength of its core.

In LEMI classes, which students will not ideally be taking unless they are passed the core phase and presumably have built a firm core for themselves, the mentors and students honor each other’s own personal beliefs, and share what they believe with each other out of their own “core book.” A core book is the place that a person gets their core from. For religious people, it often comes in the form of scripture. For non-religious people, there are numerous texts that have been written throughout the ages that are a wonderful resource from which to derive core building principles.

In this way, the student’s cores are first cultivated outside of class, studying their core books in a home environment. This is, no doubt, the right place to start, but there is no reason why education systems can’t encourage students to share their core values in an academic life, and encourage them to keep developing them.

On a societal level, core development is truly the key element to prevent world tragedies from occurring.

Remember the vacuum? Imagine the kind of life that someone with this kind of education would be able to live.

A life like this would fill any vacuum. It would be full of purpose and meaning, enlightenment and intelligence, and would make for a very satisfying existence here on earth.

Sadly, too many of today’s adults are unable to fill their vacuums because their education was inept. Despite these failures, there are several things that, if implemented into any education system, will begin to eliminate these shortcomings.

To begin with, society should never assume that there is a one-size-fits-all education system. Let us take a bird’s eye view of our modern public, and even private, education systems in America to more fully explore this idea;

The student learns by having information spewed forth to them by a teacher/professor at the front of the room, and by fulfilling homework outside of class that the teacher/professor assigns.

During the class time, they are surrounded by fellow students, who may or may not be contributing to their learning. Once they learn the information, they are expected to remember it until the end of the semester, at which time a test is taken. The purpose of this test is to see that the students have learned the material. If they pass the test, they have learned the material, and they are prepared to face the storms of life, forever remembering what they learned from the class. If they don’t pass the test, they have not mastered the material and will suffer later in life because of it.

Perhaps this philosophy is the best way for some people to learn, maybe even most people. But, this method of regurgitation will not work for all students. How can it? Human’s are diverse in their way of thinking and learning from person to person. While some students may learn best surrounded by peers, some might learn best when they are on their own. And while some might learn best in a rigid, structured environment where the teacher’s lesson is taught unhindered, some might learn best in a more relaxed creative environment (I have discovered for myself that I learn best in a more rigid environment, but I have also worked with students that do much better when they are free to be more creative). And while some might learn best doing what a teacher tells them, some might learn best working with their parents to find the best education for them personally.

Therefore a serious problem is created when legislatures attempt to confine students to one kind of education system. Therefore, the first thing to be done is to insure that students are not confined to one system.

Here is another very fundamental tool that may always be relied on when all else fails; reading. Read, read, read, and read some more.

Reading is the thing that both L’Amour and Dr. Carson had in common. Reading develops our brain’s, giving us the capacity to form conclusions. Reading enlightens us and teaches us. It gives us the opportunity to examine other cultures and people, learning from their mistakes and successes. Finally, it teaches us fundamental truths that will lead us to live purposeful virtuous lives, fulfilling the mission that has been given us.

The next tool; offer breadth in education.Consider the great difficulty that a person would have in discovering what their mission is if they are denied the opportunity to examine a smorgasbord of different subjects. “Breadth” was a word that L’Amour used to describe what a truly great education should look like in the first chapter of Education of a Wandering Man.

Going off of that, offer depth to education. Once a student, having breadth, has found a subject that they are particularly fond off, they should have the opportunity to explore that subject, enlightening their minds with their findings and discovering if perhaps the subject they are studying has any bearing on their unique mission in life.

And never forget, the development of one’s own personal character and integrity, or core.

An education like the one I have outlined gives great power to its recipient. Consider the unhappy state of those subject to the individual whose education contained everything I have outlined, with the exception of the core development aspect. The power of this kind of education will be used for good or for ill, all depending on the individual’s core strength.  

I will even go so far as to say that this kind of education, minus the core development aspect, will raise up students that will shape history in a redundancy of the 20th Century, only it will be much more catastrophic. An education like this without core development will create another generation of hitlers, stalins, and moas. These men had power. People that get the education that I have outlined will also have power. These men had weak cores, but people who follow my education module will have strong ones.

I hope that this work has broadened your perspective. If you’re still a student, take advantage of the opportunities placed before to implement the suggestions I’ve made. If you’re no longer a student, remember this; when you stop learning, you stop growing. So don’t let your consumption of knowledge stop. Develop and maintain a strong core, enlighten yourself with the abundance of knowledge around you, train yourself to be a good citizen who knows how to maintain freedom, and find a purpose for your existence.

I promise anyone you decides to take this path a journey of pure delight.

Thank you for reading,

Dallin D. Shumay

Treatise #5; A Truly Superb Education Part I

Dear Readers,

Here is the first part of treatise number five. I say "the first part" because I have decided that I will be publishing treatises a section at a time so as not to overwhelm readers with too much wisdom to take in at one time.

My plans for what to do with this blog have changed, and I have decided that I will work from now until the end of March to create a 6th treatise. I will publish a 7th at the end of April.

Happy Reading!
Dallin D. Shumway

P.S. Don't forget to tell your friends about this awesome blog. I want to share my ideas with anyone who is open to receive them.

There is a period of time, very near the beginning of one’s life, where crucial directions are taken. A friend of mine recently gave an object lesson about this period of time, using a yardstick to illustrate. A yardstick has 36 inches on it. If a man were to live to be 72, then his life could be represented using 36 inches, each inch representing two years.

My friend pointed to a spot on the yardstick; the 6th inch. Then, running his finger up near the 9th inch he said; “There is a period of time in every person’s life from about here, to here, which, though seemingly small, is perhaps the most crucial.”

He was talking about the importance of making wise decisions as a teenager. Today, I’m going to expand on his idea, by highlighting a few more significant years on the yardstick. I’d like to start at about 2.5 inches (five years), and move all the way up to about 12.5 (25 years). These inches, like the ones my friend pointed out, though seemingly insignificant when compared to the rest of our lives, are the most crucial, for these are years where we obtain our education.

Education is an essential part of our socioeconomic structure. Each of has (or at least should have) a vested interest in it. Even the retired 80-year-old man should have a vested interest in it because he still relies on the services needed to obtain the necessities of life, as well as everyday enjoyments. He cannot have these things if the younger generation does not have the education that will allow them to create said services. Thus the 80-year-old man has an interest in education.

If everyone has a vested interest in education, how ironic that there are many fundamental problems in the American education system that go unnoticed.

In mid-December, I published a treatise that discussed a phenomenon that is prevalent in adults in today’s society. I call this phenomenon the internal “vacuum.” It is the desire to have meaning in life. I encourage you to go and take a look at this treatise if you haven’t read it already; http://teenagephilosoper.blogspot.com/2014/12/treatise-3-making-achievements-part-i.html

Just as a review for those that have read this post, the Vacuum is best described using, as an example, what I call “Monday-Friday Syndrome.” This is the daily chore of dragging oneself out of bed Monday through Friday, at an hour earlier than we would like, getting dressed, and driving to a building where we will sit at a desk all day doing something that we absolutely hate.

The first problem with American education is this; it does not give us the ability to continually fill our Vacuum’s as we go through life. Education exists to prepare us for life as an adult. If it fails to put in our hands the tools needed to live a life of meaning, it has not adequately prepared us for life, and therefore has failed in its purpose.

To eliminate these problems there are a number of things that should be provided by education, and things that should be remembered by all people as we are seeking our education.

One of these things, which fails into the latter category is what I call, the Great Myth. The Great Myth is this;

Wake up each day during the months of September to May and go to school for 12 whole years of your life. If you do this, get passing grades, and graduate high school after years of formal schooling you will be educated.

A simplified way of saying this is; school = education.

This is a fallacy that throws many students, particularly while they are in the secondary and higher phases of education into an unhealthy pattern of going about learning.

Too many individuals have succeeded at life without a formal education, and too many individuals have failed at life with a formal education, for the Great Myth to be anything more than a fallacy.

If the Great Myth were really the Great Truth, then it would be impossible for anyone without a history of success in formal schooling to be able to achieve any kind of success.

A powerful example of this idea is the childhood of one of my personal heros, Dr. Benjamin Solomon Carson. He said of himself; “I was the worst student in my whole fifth-grade class.” He was miserably failing his studies, and his mother, who was single and very young (she married at age 13) worried greatly about him. He and his brother would spend their time in the evenings staring at what I like to call “the idiot box.” Look in the footnote if you want a dictionary definition of that term.

Wasting his time away on television, and having his grades fall dangerously low, his mother finally came up with a solution; limit her boy’s TV time firstly, but second, and perhaps most importantly, replace the lost screen time with reading. She told her boys; “From now on you can watch three television programs a week. Additionally, you will need to read two books every week and submit to me a report for each one.” The solution required her to be courageous and stand up to her two sons, who were angry and indignant about this new rule. But she carried it through.

This reading program that Dr. Carson’s mother set up, was a very important component to his education. Yet, it was not part of his formal schooling. And it was precisely the new way in which he began to spend his time after his mother’s new rule that saved his education.

His grades began to steadily improve and he was at the top of his class in just a few years time. Graduating from Yale and The University of Michigan’s health program, Dr. Carson has achieved very high levels of success, including being a best-selling author, successful speaker, political activist and a world renowned neurosurgeon.

For the latter, Dr. Carson was the first neurosurgeon to find a way to remove an entire hemisphere of a human brain without killing, or even severely inhibiting the life of his patient. More importantly, he was the first neurosurgeon to successfully separate siamese twins, conjoined at the head. He is also a renowned thought leader on education and politics in America.

Had his mother insisted on just leaving things as they were and hoping that the standardized education system that he was in would eventually take care of his inability to learn, it is very likely that he never would have made the contributions to society that he is so beloved for.

On the other hand, consider all of the many people who complete the full, standard, all-American education module, and fail miserably at life.

If this is a hard concept for you to grasp, then go to your local prison and talk to the inmates about their educational background. Yes, you will certainly find high school dropouts, but I guarantee that you will also talk to many people that at least started college, as well as people who finished college, and perhaps even a few who went on to earn a doctorate degree.

A college degree does not guarantee that you’ll succeed, nor does the lack of a high school diploma doom you to failure.

The second thing that should be remembered is the true purpose of education.

For many Americans, the years that they spend obtaining their education can be very grueling. The main incentive that pushes them through these first roughly 12.5 inches on the yardstick is the belief that they won’t be able to support themselves and a family without a decent education. While this is true in many cases, this idea usually goes even farther than that to say that this is the only reason to get an education. This is a gross misconception, and it’s one of the biggest reasons why so many adults feel an emptiness inside.

Louis L'Amour, who dropped out of high school during his sophomore year at age 15, received one of the best educations out of all the people that I’ve had the opportunity to study. His education was found through reading books, and living and working all over the world, and reading books, and rubbing shoulders with all kinds of different people in his various work environments, and reading more books.

Eventually, his reading allowed him to develop an outstanding skill in creative writing, and thus have a means of livelihood. He has become one of America’s most beloved novelists.  Readers all over the world love his books. But, this wasn’t the biggest blessing that came from his education. His biggest blessing was the enlightenment that he received. In his novel Fair Blows the Wind (one that I thoroughly enjoyed), he said; “The well of learning is one that never ceases to flow and we have only to drink of its waters.”

L’Amour, most assuredly, could have easily given up on his education when financial hardships hit his family during the early 1900’s, at which time he chose to leave school. But, interestingly enough, the most important reason for why he left school when he was only 15 was because he didn’t want the education it was giving him. In the first chapter of his memoir Education of a Wandering Man, he explains why he made the decision to leave the standardized education system; “I left for two reasons, economic necessity being the first of them. More importantly was that school was interfering with my education.”

Wow! What a statement to make! School interfering with education? For L’Amour personally, he felt incomplete in the public school system. He left it, and became a hobo which, at the time, did not refer to a beggar who did no work as it often does today, but rather to a person who had no home, but traveled all over the place and worked, helping people that needed extra hands to get a job done. Farming is a good example of the work that hobos did. Whereas now many people view homeless people as a strain on our economy, the hobos back then were essential to it.

As L’Amour was going about the country, and sailing to places beyond, he took advantage of the resources around him; books! And he enlightened his mind in an amazing way, going on to become wildly successful as a writer.

No one who gets a truly great education will turn around and say; “Gee, I wish I hadn’t received that enlightenment. I should have just remained in the dark.” Granted, people who complete graduate school and then don’t use their degree might feel bad that they went to so much work to get a certification that they aren’t using, but that’s for practical reasons (like having a pile of student loan debt and not having the job they were counting on to pay it off quickly), not necessarily because they don’t like what they learned.

To be continued on February 25th. Thanks for reading...........