And if you look at the structure of formal education in the classroom,
it hasn't evolved. It hasn't changed in a very long time.
Formal education or self education, which one is better?
Maybe you are just completing high school
and you're thinking about going to college for the first time or maybe you are
thinking about going back to school,
back to college for more accreditation and another degree or a different degree.
If this is you and you are considering formal education,
or maybe you're thinking about learning by yourself,
or taking either programs or certifications outside of university
and you're wondering which one is better,
that's what I'm going to talk about today.
Most people think of education as something they could only get in a classroom
with a certified teacher, but if you look at the word education,
the root word is educate and the word educate originates from the Latin word
"Educere", which means to bring forth and to lead forth,
so education was really meant to bring out the gifts and talents,
the full potential of students and to give them scope to develop.
If you look at the structure of formal education,
it really hasn't changed in a very long time and it really is something
that is imposed from the outside,
formal education is something that's imposed from the outside.
So it consists of experiences where you have a teacher standing in front of a
classroom, there is a chalkboard or a whiteboard and you take notes,
there are assignments and then there are exams at the end of semesters
or at the end of certain periods of times, to test your knowledge.
So traditionally the experience of formal knowledge
happens externally through experiences and activities.
Now there are examples of people all around us who are highly successful,
influential and well adjusted, who did not complete a formal education.
So this begins to poke holes in the age-old assumption that formal education is
better than self-education.
And the problem is this causes conflicts between students and their teachers and
their parents.
The conflict is there because there's this dualism between the perception that
formal education is good for you,
and dropping out or not getting a degree is bad for you.
But the objective fact is that it is neither. Comment below.
Are you considering formal education or self education?
Where are you at on this consideration and what are you planning to study?
In the modern world,
people prefer to learn from others who have successfully done what they want to
do instead of learning from professional teachers.
And so the key is to evolve, to evolve to the job market place that's always
changing and to make sure that you are relevant and to stay relevant in that
marketplace so that you are always having skillsets
to offer to who you want to work for.
And we know from the science that the key to evolution is variation.
So what do we mean by that? So let me, let me give you an example.
You've all seen those beetles, right?
Those insects that are running around, those beetles.
If you ever taken a close look at a beetle,
you'll notice that some of them have horns on their head, they have horns.
And what scientists have found over the years is that these horns are actually a
projection of the skeleton of the beetle.
And each beetle has a different size,
the horn of each beetle has a different size,
and they grow on different points of the beetles head.
So why is this important is because beetles,
they found that beetles who have larger and more developed and more extravagant
horns, they were able to develop them because at an earlier stage,
in their larva stage, before they became adult beetles,
they were exposed and they had access to more nutrition.
So beetles who have had access to more nutrition at a larva stage ended up as an
adult being larger sized beetles
and having larger horns that are more extravagant in shape.
And those beetles with the more extravagant horns,
they're able to defend themselves even better.
So beetles didn't always have horns, but over time they evolved,
in their evolution, they've developed these horns,
which allowed them to survive better.
And the reason why they were able to develop
the horns was because of variation in their nutrition and the variation of their
environment that allowed them access to nutrition.
That's not something you might be able to relate to.
Maybe you've never seen a beetle before.
So let me put this in technological terms. Look at the smartphone, for example,
if you look at the first smartphones that came out or before that,
the first cell phones that came out in the late nineties or the early two
thousands, they were very big.
They were very clunky and they were not smartphones. They had physical buttons.
Some of them were flip phones, some of them were sliding out,
some of them didn't do anything. You just, you just push the buttons there.
But they were cell phones, right? But one thing for sure was that
there were so many different types. You can get a Motorola,
or you could get a Nokia.
There were so many different types of cell phones and therefore there was
variation, right? You had a variation of cell phone. Because there was variation,
all these big cell phone companies, and upcoming cellphone companies,
were able to recognize which cell phones would work,
which cell phones that the marketplace wanted and
what features that they could develop in the future.
It's only because there was variation that they could refine the product.
And so then comes the smartphone and that's where they realized that people
don't want buttons.
You know, there was sleek design,
they wanted thinner phones and they started to get thinner,
and then all of a sudden they wanted to go on the Internet.
So then all of a sudden you have smartphones that go on the Internet,
and they do everything outside of just dialing a number.
So variation is key to evolution.
So the key to evolution is variation.
And if you look at the structure of formal education in the classroom,
it hasn't evolved. It hasn't changed in a very long time.
And modern day, there's all of a sudden the introduction
of a lot of online learning classrooms,
there's been a lot of programs out there, coaches, teachers that
aren't professional teachers, but they have the success that you want to have.
So rather than asking the
question is formal education better than self education,
or vice versa, a better question to ask is, what is the result that you want?
What is the outcome that you want for your career and which path can get you
there?
Because a better approach is to say that neither one of them is good or bad,
because it's that dualism that gives that conflict,
neither one of them is good or bad, they both can get you an outcome.
But the right question to ask yourself is what is the outcome and which path can
get me there?
And you might be surprised that maybe both of them can get you there,
and maybe self education can get you there better.
So that assessment is what you need to decide rather than asking which one is
better. If you like my content,
remember to give me a thumbs up and hit that bell as well to subscribe to my
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and I look forward to hanging out with you in my next video.