Education is our world’s key to the future. It is the single most important element to building a stable and ever-growing society. A major mission of every generation is to make sure that the generation that comes after them has it a little easier than they did, and the key to doing that is through education. However, we don’t have to approach education the same way that we always have. Just as the democratization of education has changed the world, so too has the world changed the possibilities of education. The bottlenecks for an educated populace are rapidly opening, just as they did at the advent of public education. The cause for this rapid change is the rise of self-education. Here are some of the reasons that self-education is the way of the future…
Learn how to learn
Today’s world is flooded with all sorts of information. The sheer volume of knowledge that is contained online is momentous. The tools are out there to learn anything that you want to learn in a way that has never existed before. However, not all of this information is useful, correct, or trustworthy. One of the most important missions of education today is to teach young people how to successfully work their way through the overload of stimulation and information that is so easily available to them. That is one of the prime benefits that self-education can have for students. It isn’t just about teaching you one particular topic, but is instead based around helping you learn how to learn on your own. The independence that is developed through self-education can be utilized in any aspect of life.
Learning at a student’s own pace
Education, by nature of what it is supposed to do, cannot have a model that is one-size-fits-all. People are far more complex than that. While standardized education does work to improve education rates amongst more people, it is also important to recognize that education is also a personal journey for people, and that learning styles vary, depending on the individual. What self-education has provided for students is a method of learning that works at their own pace. Students will approach learning with the style that best suits them on their own terms.
There’s more than one way to learn
It’s important to note that self-education is not an option that will work for everyone. Some people need the specific structure that the traditional school system provides for students. Indeed, for many students, an entire education based on autodidacticism (self-learning) wouldn’t work, as they would not find the reasonable foundation of knowledge that they need to compete in today’s marketplace. However, what self-education does offer is the ability to be independent with your education, in conjunction with traditional methods and systems. This self-created balance of structure and freedom can generate more creativity and inspire a passion for learning that young people desperately need, today.
Online opportunities open up self-education
A major reason that self-education is able to take such a massive leap forward is due to the power of the internet. The number of students who are taking online classes is rapidly growing every year, as well as the number of students who are getting their entire formal education online. However, online learning isn’t for everybody, but can be a game changer for students who want something beyond the traditional model of classroom education. If you’d like to see how well you’d do in an online learning environment, take this nifty quiz.
Industries are already generating self-education resources
Self-education goes long past our years in school. Many industries are already recognizing the potential of having a self-educating workforce that is able to adapt and learn on their own. This is especially true of industries that depend on rapidly changing information, and a workforce that can be up-to-date with the extreme idiosyncrasies required of them. An example of this is the medical industry, where free open access “meducation” (referred to as FOAM) have really made a tremendous impact. These FOAMs are incredibly interesting, and entirely open to the public. If you’d like to check out several popular FOAM’s, check out this useful list here.