We are so accustomed to “the way things are” that we don’t really see the full worth of what we have. The following is important. One way to gain insight is to imagine the extreme opposite. We have many opportunities for education. Some of us don’t appreciate those opportunities. So I pose a thought exercise to clarify in our minds the value of education.

Assume that you were born to parents who had the idea that children should learn by themselves, without any help from anyone. Assume that you have to figure out and learn everything without any help from anyone. Your parents would not teach you.

No one would warn you, “Don’t touch the stove, it will hurt you.” “Don’t play in the street, a car could run over you and hurt you.” “Don’t run up to a strange dog and hug it, it might bite you.”

No one would teach you how to button buttons, or tie your shoes.

If you somehow managed to survive to age five, your parents would not send you to school. You would have no teachers, no books, no classrooms, no lessons, and no schools. No one would teach you the alphabet, or to read and write. No one would teach you arithmetic, or how to read a ruler. No one would teach you about money, or investing. You would have to learn everything by figuring it out for yourself, if you were able to! And if you don’t know how to read, that would be difficult. Reading is the most important Life-Skill!

When it came time to be on your own, and get a job, you would not have any good skills. You might be able to sweep floors, wash dishes, or some other low paying job. You couldn’t read a newspaper, book, magazine, or the instructions that come with the latest gadget you just bought.

You would be smarter than a pile of rocks, but not by much!

We humans learn from each other. But first we have to choose to!

We can learn in real-time, one person directly teaching another. It can happen over time. Someone writes a book containing some of his knowledge or wisdom, and later we read it and learn. The book may have been written thousands of years ago, so we learn from others across long spans of time.

Learning from others is part of what education is. Respect your schoolteachers. Respect your family. Respect “teachers” no matter who they are. Look for the value in what they want to teach you, and make it your own.