Live and Learn

“I wish I had known then what I know now!” How many times have you said that to yourself? Maybe it was after the purchase of a new car when you realized you could have paid a lower price at a different dealership.  Or maybe it was a month or two after you had moved to a faraway city to take a new job, and you became depressed because you missed your old colleagues and friends and wished you had never left. We’ve all made decisions that we lived to regret but that’s part of life. Life is a learning process, and while experience is a very good teacher, there are many different ways to live and learn.

I have discovered that people who continue to learn throughout their lives have a freshness about them that never grows old even with age. I have known people in their 80s and even 90s who continued to push themselves through various educational programs. Some of my retired friends participate in book clubs where they read novels or works of non-fiction and then meet to discuss what they have read. Others take college courses or enroll in workshops to learn to paint or sculpt or cook. I know a few people who, while still holding down a full-time job, spend time each day trying to master a foreign language. Regardless of our stage in life, we live best when we continue learn.

The renowned educator John Dewey believed that education was not preparation for life, but was life itself. If we stop learning, we stop growing as human beings and become rigid and inflexible.

John Dewey

I’ll never forget the time I visited a man in his mid-80s who was battling terminal cancer. He was watching television, and at first I thought he was just passing time. However, when I looked at the screen, I noticed mathematical equations. Intrigued, I asked him what he was doing and he said, “I’m taking an online calculus course.” Wow! Here was a man, with only a few months to live, who continued to have a thirst for knowledge.

Since God created us with the ability to think and reason, a life-long pursuit of knowledge honors our Creator. That certainly doesn’t mean we all have to become scholars or Ph.Ds. There are different kinds of education, and there are different ways to acquire an education. My paternal grandfather had only an 8th grade education and spent his life as an automobile mechanic. In his 40s he had saved enough money to buy a small garage in East Texas where he lived and worked the rest of his life. He knew cars inside and out. People brought their automobiles to his shop from all over East Texas because they trusted him and knew him to be a highly skilled mechanic.

My grandfather excelled in his chosen career, even though he had little in the way of formal education. My grandfather died before I was born, but from what my dad told me, he lived a full, productive, and happy life. He didn’t have a college degree, but he was educated in his chosen field and contributed significantly to his community.

To be counted as a success doesn’t necessarily mean that a person needs to make a certain amount of money or attain a particular status in society. To be successful means to be content and happy with who you are and find satisfaction in what you do. We may celebrate the rich and famous as the standard of what it means to be successful, but many of the wealthiest people in the world live in emotional and spiritual poverty.

If the goal in life is happiness—as I think it is—then there are different ways to achieve it. Not everyone needs to go to college in order to live a successful and fulfilled life. In Europe, for example, a university education is not seen as a prerequisite for a well-paying job and a comfortable lifestyle. In an early stage of school—8th or 9th grade—some students choose to follow a particular career path that doesn’t include college. These young people develop interests in occupations like hotel management, mechanics, building construction, food service, health related fields or any number of good paying jobs. These students attend school for half a day, then work in their chosen field as apprentices for the remainder of the day. They are paid for their work and when they graduate from high school, they have a job and a career. These vocations are valued and respected by Europeans.

Decades ago, American high schools discontinued most vocational training in the belief that college should be the goal of every student. For many high school students the lack of vocational training opportunities has left them frustrated and dispirited. These are highly intelligent young people whose aptitude for a particular field of work doesn’t require a college degree. But in America, unlike Europe, the pressure to attend college pushes many of these young people into less than satisfactory careers coupled with staggering financial debt.

A few years ago, a young woman electrician came to our house to do some electrical work for us. I asked her how she liked her profession and she smiled and said, “I love what I do. The pay is great and I’m living the life I want.” What a great testimony! This woman, in her late 20s, never attended college but instead went to vocational school and learned a valuable trade. I know many college graduates, on the other hand, who work in an office where they hate what they do and are still paying off their college student loans.

That’s not to say that college is unimportant. For professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, science or jobs requiring a humanities background a college degree is mandatory. Students who have the aptitude to follow one of these academic paths should also feel valued and respected. In recent years, there have been attacks on America’s faith in knowledge and science that I find incomprehensible and irresponsible. America’s standing in the world has been defined not only by hard-working blue collar workers without college degrees but also by the men and women who have labored through a university education.

America’s universities and graduate schools are some of the best in the world and students matriculate from many different countries to study with American professors and teachers. But America should also strive to have superior vocational training for those who choose not to pursue a university degree. In our complicated world, there are many ways to learn, as education is acquired in many different ways, sometimes formally and sometimes informally. Whichever path a person chooses, may it lead to a life of continuous learning.