Autodidacticism

You Have Everything YOU Need For a Good Education

Amy Barr with The Lukeion Project

The English word “education” comes from the Latin word educare, a verb that can refer to the process of bringing up children to adulthood or providing a wholesome place for animals or crops to grow. Modern usage would have us think that education is a commodity that we might purchase in the form of a book, a program, a class, or whole degree program. When we are done with one or all of these, we proclaim ourselves “educated.” The Latin word does not refer to any of these things, per se. Instead, one’s education is a matter of having a favorable environment or fertile soil for somebody (or something) to grow productively. Education, for much of human history, has been a personal choice and under our own control.

In the Roman world, those that worked on a subject very diligently might eventually be considered doctus by others, meaning they were well-informed, experienced, and clever. Doctus is a passive participle of doceo, a verb which means “teach” (a doctor was a teacher not a medical expert). Somebody who is doctus has been “taught” but not necessarily by others and certainly not in some established program. Remove your modern sensibilities about being taught. The English words we use to define doctus or docta have more to do with how one treats oneself as one builds one’s own learning environment. A well-informed, experienced, and clever person takes the initiative to self-educate regardless of one’s station in life.

The most brilliant men and women in history have been autodidacts who, until very recently, had zero framed diplomas hanging in their offices. Degrees, as such, didn’t factor into anyone’s career qualifications until the far more recent past. The notion of placing a measure (and certificate of completion) on one’s education was not something that most people thought about until public education compelled us to think in terms of something that could be measured, quantified, qualified, and marketed to the human race.

Greek philosopher Plato once said, “The first and best victory is to conquer self.” Aristotle, Plato’s student, listened carefully to his master’s words for 20 years and then reversed his opinion on most of Plato’s teachings to form his own thoughts. He famously said, “Through self-discipline comes freedom.” As he too would become an educator of famous people like Alexander the Great, Aristotle would also say “What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do.”

Education today is not something our Classical fore-bearers would recognize or condone. Today we view education as a set of stairs. We climb up some of those steps and celebrate when we’ve arrived at a certain stage while we earn a slip of paper that some institution has issued to say as much. Leaving behind all that was accomplished before, we climb a new set of slightly more difficult stairs and look for new affirmations of completion until, armed with seemingly enough certificates, we are deemed qualified. Those that didn’t climb those particular stairs are not authorized to form opinions or advice in that area. Such people are merely amateurs, a word that comes from the word for love (amare) in Latin. 

Modern education is a lucrative system that is jealous of all forms of competition. We are told we aren’t qualified to do our own research and we aren’t qualified to educate ourselves. Those who are home-educated must simulate a public education by jumping through similar hoops in hopes of being issued a graduation certificate which, despite numerous studies that prove that home education is the far superior method of learning, is often considered sub-standard by many secondary institutions. Many top universities are slowly understanding how valuable our home educated autodidacts are! The top skill mastered in home education is how to educate oneself, a skill that becomes a game-changing advantage in college, graduate school, career, and life. Those that don't want any part of that type of conveyor belt system are benefited as they teach themselves how to live the kind of life that interests them most. 

Autodidacticism (self-education) is and has always been the most reliable method to become well-informed, experienced, and clever. Our own interests and passions are a powerful tool to compel us to excel. Autodidacts are never sated with mastering a single body of knowledge. Having learned one and then two, self-educators are driven to learn by their own interests. They choose to master more and still more. While such people often go on to collect a variety of degrees because they are still constrained by our modern system, they will always continue their own learning process provided they have life and breath.

As Plato points out, your first task is to master as an autodidact is self-discipline. Rising above your own lazy instincts to sleep more or play more means you’ll have the ability to push on, to persist in your efforts to master some topic or skill. If you have enough self-discipline to persist, there are no limits to your goals or ambitions. This is true freedom. The choice falls on you. You have control over your own timeline, effort, and skill. Degree programs might require a set number of years and certainly a prearranged fee, but a self-disciplined autodidact has control of his own time, her own effort, and the quality of all outcomes. Armed with far more educational materials and opportunities than history’s brightest minds, the best education today can be free, or nearly so.

 

 

History Was not Boring

Your Teacher Was

Regan Barr with The Lukeion Project

Recently I was speaking to a friend who admitted she is still trying to overcome a lifelong hatred of history. She related a story that I have heard dozens of times: all her "formal" history education was nothing more than memorizing faceless lists of names and dates. She is still bitter. I had some awful history class experiences, as well.
For example, I remember taking state history in junior high...I do not remember any state history, I just remember TAKING state history. And I remember the room clearly. The powers-that-be called these things “portable classrooms,” but the students called them “trailers.” They were rectangular boxes made of corrugated metal that had been strategically placed at the farthest corner of a black-topped parking lot. The Oklahoma summer sun blazed down on that parking lot in late August heating it up to at least four hundred degrees. Crossing from the main building to the trailer for history was dangerous business. The furnace blast would hit you and you could feel your skin melting. Your only hope was to make it to the trailer before your blood began to boil. When we finally stumbled up the rickety wooden steps and into the air-conditioned coolness of that trailer, we collapsed into a dehydrated heap and gasped for air. As we paused to admire our own survival skills, it would hit us. “Oh, man!! They have done it to us again. They tricked us into coming to history.”
The state history teacher was young, just out of college, and he had flaming red hair. He was a wrestling coach who had been forced to teach state history. He must have done something awful in college because he was being punished in this assignment. History was as torturous for him as it was for us. He was easily flustered and when he became angry or frustrated, he turned bright red in the face. Some classmates decided that evoking this reaction from our uninspired and unmotivated instructor was a lot more interesting than any old boring state history. Those students smelled fear, and when their pack instincts kicked in, the poor man had no chance. He was like a wildebeest separated from the herd and the lions were intent on bringing him down. He would get louder, redder, and more animated the angrier they made him. To his credit, he never acted upon those thoughts of violence that surely filled his head. That class took years off his life.
Now some might be under the naïve impression that teachers should spend time learning the subject matter they will be teaching, but I think in teachers’ colleges today you get right to the crowd control training. It is a rare junior high that has an excited and knowledgeable state history teacher, so any poor fool who gets stuck in that classroom better have some crowd control training – some riot gear might help, too. No experienced teachers ever made that blistering journey across the blacktop to see how things were going out in the “state history trailer.” He was on his own!
That is the sum of my memories of history prior to college. I cannot even recall what gender my high school history teacher was, though I am certain I took some history in high school. Is it any surprise that I hated history? I remember my civics teacher because he had some funny mannerisms that were more interesting than civics. I remember my kindergarten teacher because she mispronounced my name for half the school year. I remember…or rather feared…my fourth-grade teacher because she was a large, gray-haired gal who thought her students’ idea of a fun time was skipping the lunchroom pizza crowd to eat vegetable soup (!) with her in the classroom. The image of her brandishing a yardstick as she attempted to chase down some miscreant on the playground is emblazoned in my memory.
I remember those teachers, but not the history I was supposed to learn. Why? Because of the interesting details. My teachers, classmates, and classrooms were swirling vortexes of interesting details, but history itself was not. Today I understand that it is the details that make history fascinating – the sort of details I remember about angry teachers or the walk through the inferno to the “state history trailer” – not the sorts of details you find on a timeline.
By the time it got to me, history had been scoured clean of all the interesting details and only drudgery was left. History does not occur in expansive decades, centuries, and millennia. It does not even happen in timeline tick marks. It happens the same way that life does: one moment at a time, one blistering step at a time. History is not the story of enormous hordes of faceless automatons. It is the story of unique people like you and me. They sometimes cooperate, sometimes get into fights, and sometimes act with dignity and reason, but quite often act in silly, dangerous, or unpredictable ways. It was not until I got to college that I had instructors who loved what they were teaching and filled their history lessons with little-known facts and engaging anecdotes. Guess what?? History is about real people! History cannot be boring unless life itself is boring. But sometimes we stand so far away that we cannot see any of the interesting bits.

Check out Lukeion Classical History for high school level and above

How to Apply to College as a Homeschooler

Tips & Tricks from a Former-Homeschooler, College Graduate, & Admission Counselor

By Natalie Williams

Natalie Williams is a former Lukeion student who was homeschooled her whole life before enrolling at the University of Dallas, a small Liberal Arts college in Irving, Texas. She graduated magna cum laude in 2022 with a double major in French and Art History. She now works as the designated homeschool Admission Counselor for the University of Dallas. You can contact her at nataliem@udallas.edu for more information on applying to UD, or to ask what her favorite Lukeion class was.

 It’s time to gear up for another year of homeschool - possibly your last! With new classes and extracurriculars, however, comes new anxiety about the future. Now you are getting asked, “Where do you want to go to college?” Maybe you have already started applying to your favorite school and are already wearing your school colors. Maybe you have absolutely no clue what you want to study, let alone where you want to spend the next four years of adulthood. And of course, the question that is just as--if not more--pressing: “How do I apply to college as a homeschooled student?”

Whether you follow an accredited or unaccredited program (as I did), you have unique opportunities to create your own “school,” and decide what kind of person you want to be. And now you get to share that person with everyone else through the college application process.

But what does that mean in regards to applying to college? It’s not impossible to apply to college as a homeschooler, and many colleges welcome homeschooled students. Here are some questions to get you started:

What college should I look for?

Think about your favorite subjects in school and your favorite things to do outside of school. Here are some questions to get you started:

• What gives you motivation and drive? Also think about why you like what you like. What fascinates you?
• If you do not have a specific academic interest, consider taking electives related to your interests until you find something you like.
• Think about what kind of college you are looking for. Size, the type of education, culture, and campus life all impact the decision process.
• Where is it located? What opportunities are there in the area for you to grow personally and professionally?
• Think about your career path, if you have one in mind. What kind of work do you enjoy?

What do I need to apply to college?

• Application - Many colleges use the Common App, or may have their own internal application. Some schools may charge an application fee, but many will let you waive that fee if you apply early.
• College essay - Some colleges require an essay showcasing something you are passionate about, or how a moment in your life impacted you. At the University of Dallas, we read every single essay for both content and grammar. We want to see students’ unique qualities shining through their work.
• Short answers – Colleges may require additional short answers that are specific to their institution. Ask yourself what you value about the college, their mindset, their values, and let those form your answers.
• Letter(s) of recommendation - Applications may request one or more letters of recommendation, particularly from your high school counselor. As a homeschooler, your counselor would be your primary educator (hello mom or dad!), but it never hurts to get more letters from outside sources. Another teacher, a coach, a mentor, even an employer can all write excellent letters. A good baseline would be two or three letters total.
• Transcript - Your one-page summary of all the courses you have completed or will complete by the time you graduate. Parents: make sure to include your student’s grades as well as a key to interpret those grades. For example, if you grade on a 4.0 scale and you give your student in A in Latin and B+ in Chemistry, providing a key helps colleges understand your student’s success.AP/IB/Dual Credit transcripts - If you took courses from an outside institution that counted for high school and college credit, you may need to request an additional transcript from that school.
• Book list and/or course descriptions - Some colleges may require this for unaccredited homeschoolers. You can start compiling this list as soon as freshman year with a short description of your classes, including: (A) What you learne, (B) How the content was administered, (C) What materials you used to learn.
• Standardized test scores - The SAT, ACT, and CLT are the most common tests to submit to colleges. However, many colleges are test-optional. For some, this means they do not take test scores into consideration when it comes to the admissions process. For others, like the University of Dallas, it means we do not use test scores to award merit-based scholarships. Ask your intended school what its test policy is.
• FAFSA and scholarship applications - Fill out the FAFSA to get the best financial aid package possible, and ask your school what financial aid it can provide you. Some scholarships may be awarded as part of your application or separately.

What expectations do colleges have from homeschoolers? What can I do now to prepare for college?

These are my two most commonly asked questions from homeschooled students. Homeschoolers are sometimes concerned about the impression universities have of them, and thus students feel it necessary to “prove” themselves to get into their dream school.

I understand that fear. I know both the uncertainty of not knowing what lies ahead in college, and the longing of just wanting to be at my new school. I remember the anxiety of waiting for an answer from my dream school only to be assured that I did get a spot. I even know the pain of rejection from my backup school (which was a last resort school, but the rejection still hurts). Rest assured, you are more prepared than you think, and I guarantee you are not alone in your worries. That’s why we are here - to answer all of your questions, and then some.

As for expectations, colleges expect that homeschooled students have a variety of interests and talents. They expect that homeschooled students are disciplined, mature, and achieve all their goals. More often than not, homeschoolers are our best students. What you can do now is keep taking classes that interest you, or otherwise just keep fueling that thirst for knowledge. Do you love researching obscure Roman emperors, or creating elaborate henna tattoos? Get a book from the library or research a YouTube video to improve your knowledge. Do you love performing for your family or performing science experiments in the kitchen? Sign up for an acting class or a science subscription. Find ways to fuel your passion and the rest will come easily.

Do's and Don’ts about College Applications

• DO make note of important dates and deadlines. Colleges may have early deadlines for applications and scholarships, and it’s important to keep track of them so you can get a spot in class or the best financial aid package.
• DO visit the college - or colleges - you are interested in. More often than not you have more freedom to arrange your schedule as a homeschooler, so plan a road trip with the family and check out some schools!
• DO make the most of your visit. Meet with your admission counselor, tour the campus, ask to sit in on classes, and have lunch with students. Picture yourself coming here in a year, or two, or four. Check out the local coffee shops or visit a museum and turn the visit into a mini vacation!
• DO get a second pair of eyes to look over your materials, especially your essays. Some colleges are very particular about application materials, and smaller schools in particular read everything. Clean up your grammar and spelling, and make sure your essays and short answers are consistent.
• DO get to know your college admission counselor. Many schools have a specific homeschool liaison or dedicated admission counselor (like me!). Scheduling an appointment or visit with them can help you stand out from the crowd even more. Ask questions about campus culture, academics, and fun things to do in the area.
• DON’T look at the sticker price. Ok, look at it a little bit. Let’s face it, college is expensive. But often universities and organizations will offer scholarships to ease the financial burden. These scholarships can range from a few hundred dollars to free tuition or (even better) free rides. Ask what scholarships are available, and research 3rd party scholarships too.
• DON’T pay money to win a scholarship. The whole point of a scholarship is that it’s free money. If you’re paying money to get money, it’s not worth it.
• DON’T wait until the last minute to apply. Chances are if you do apply late, you may still get into the college of your choice, but you may miss out on important scholarships and financial aid. Plus, it’s less stressful for you if you’re not scrambling at the last minute.
• One Last “Don’t”… Don’t worry about your major.“What do you mean don’t worry?? Isn’t that the whole purpose of college? What about all that ‘find your passion’ stuff? Why even go to college if my major doesn’t matter?”Ok, when I said that I didn't mean to disregard absolutely everything I said above. What I do mean is, if you have a great education, you will not be limited by your major. Often there are certain roles associated with certain majors, and if you want to be a teacher after studying English for four years, that’s awesome! But just because you majored in English does not mean you are bound to only English-related careers. My dad majored in history, went into computer programming, and is currently a senior manager at one of the largest web companies in the world. My childhood best friend graduated with a philosophy major and wanted to be a philosophy professor only to discover her love of nursing. My college best friend was a biology major for the first year of college before switching to psychology, and now she works with special-needs children. And the best part of all these stories? They were all homeschooled. Their education prepared them to follow their passions, even when those passions changed.

You’re graduating college as a twenty-something year old. That is still plenty of time to figure out how you want to shape your future. The journey is yours alone, but that doesn’t mean you are alone. Your high school counselors (AKA your parents) and your college counselors (AKA people like me!) are here to help you find the best fit for you, and we can’t wait to see you grow into the person you are meant to be.