Returning to my Autodidactic Ways

Posted June 5, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Education / 4 Comments

I recently wrote a manifesto on why I write a book blog. One of my plans was to write every day and I think I’m off to a great start but I can’t write about literature everyday; or can I? I look at this blog with fond memories and remember enjoying writing about my autodidactic exploration. I think it is about time to get back into writing this blog. I started studying, thinking I would learn a lot and have lots to write about.

For some reason university never really helped with blogging but I have been learning. I have to remind myself why I started blogging. When I started Knowledge Lost (wasn’t the original name) I planned to use this as a vessel for documenting my learning. I feel like I learn better if I try to explain everything in my own words. In fact it turns out that people’s retention rates increase if they try to teach others what they learned.

Not that I actually plan to use this site as a place to teach people; this is my dumping ground to sort out my thoughts. I like learning and I wish I got a decent education but then I realised this isn’t a fault with the teachers. This is a problem with the education system, the method of learning isn’t really effective to people. In fact only about 10% of people retain the information from a lecture teaching style.

I remember a wonderful book called The Elements by Ken Robinson, which talks about the need for educational reform. The book explores the concept of helping people to find their passion in life, if we can tap into this passion they will feel inspired to achieve at their highest levels. The scary thing about this book was discovering that I had an interest in education; obviously not enough to ever consider become a teacher. I think I found the idea of finding my passion in life has pushed me to want to learn everything about the topics I’m interested in (Art History, Philosophy, Psychology, Literature and Sociology). I created the blog to help explore these topics and slowly write down everything I learn about these topics.

I kind of lost my way; I should be writing down what I’ve learnt so I can retain the knowledge. I’m working on understanding literary theory and plan to start reading Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams in an effort to understand his theories. I’m hoping this will help develop a better understanding of psychology and the literary theory psychoanalytic. So watch this space, I’m hoping this blog will return and be updated more often.