SELF EDUCATION

 

Notes on Self-Education

Some History

Man has always been able to educate himself without instructors. In third world countries, there are limited education opportunities —  self-education is the only way to acquire skills. Up until about 1960, a job applicant with self-education skills was desirable. Chuck Yeager was the first man to fly faster than sound, yet his formal education was limited to high school. His skills helped us learn how to put man in space. When the first astronauts were chosen, Chuck Yeager, the man who showed us how, was disqualified because he did not have a college education. From this time on, self-educated people were not recognized on employment application forms. In the last 40 years, self-education has gone underground. It is still active, but is not recognized by society.

Th
e Panama Canal

The Panama Canal Commission has always adapted advancing technology as soon as it was available. This may be tradition from the construction days. Because of the demand for skilled employees in advancing technology and lack of formal training opportunity, the Commission has to rely on the self-educated. This was especially true during the construction days when most of the workers came from Jamaica with almost no formal education.

Mr. John F. Stevens, the chief engineer, did not have a grade school education. He understood self-education concepts and implemented a leadership style that took full advantage of man's ability to educate himself. There is a saying: 

"If employers treat their employees like engineers, they will think and act like engineers. If they treat them like helpers, they will think and act as helpers."

The Panama Canal Commission treats blue-collar craftsmen like engineers. As a result, they make decisions equal to that of college-educated engineers in the United States. In most parts of the US, blue-collar craftsmen are treated as helpers.

The Experience

In 1980, the Panama Canal Commission installed timesharing computers in all offices. (Timesharing was a typewriter controlled by a computer at a central location. There was no monitor, input and output was typed on rolled paper.). I was working as a machinist when assigned to the office to operate the computer. My only experience was reading about them.

My assignment was to write programs that would be useful in the office. There was no instructor available; the only source of help was a small manual that came with the computer. There was no software, so the first assignment was to learn BASIC computer language, then design programs that would be useful in the office. 

A year later, IBM-PCs were installed. The same policy, no outside help and write your own software. It really wasn't policy, there was no one available to help and there was no useful software on the market that met our needs. I retired 8 years later as supervisor of the computer department.

I had a similar experience in 1954 when I was 19 years old, in the Marine Corps, during the Korean War. I was sent to Japan. First day off the troop ship, an officer told me, "you are a machinist. You are also in charge of the machine shop." Using a small manual, I taught myself to be a machinist, which became my primary occupation.

During extended combat, there is no time for years of training. Teenagers are able to learn skills in weeks, if not days, when under combat pressure. They are learning with hands-on in real word environments. It takes years to learn the same skills in classrooms.

My ability to educate myself is the secret that open the doors of opportunity. Number of years in the classroom may determine the ease of getting a job, but self-education skill determines the ability to advance.

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