Reader, Thinker, Teacher, Guide
So. You’ve decided to take the next step on your self-education journey. You’ve overheard the great conversations and can’t get enough of them. You learned how to identify metaphors in high school, and now you can’t stop seeing them everywhere. Good for you!
But now what? Do you just jump in with both feet and see what YouTube-iversity has to offer? Do you decide what you want to learn more about and promptly fall down every rabbit hole you encounter? Those are definitely options. But what about a mentor? When we picture education, we usually imagine a classroom with a teacher at the front. This is someone who guides young minds, shapes the way they think, and tells them to quiet down.
I sat with these questions for a while and wondered whether I needed a teacher in order to educate myself. I confess, I still crave the expertise of a white-haired mage who has the answers to all my burning questions. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I’m largely on my own here. But maybe I didn’t need a teacher. Maybe what I needed was a guide, or better yet, several guides. I’ve had plenty of teachers in my earlier years, when I truly needed that kind of rigid structure. What I’m after now looks a little different.
I know I work best with some structure, so I began gathering guides wherever I could find them. Podcasts that offered expertise and experience rather than hot takes. Authors whose work quietly shaped the way I thought over time. Even free online courses from colleges and universities that provided just enough scaffolding without boxing me in. None of these told me exactly what to think, but they did offer signposts: what universities are asking their students to read, how long it should take me to deep dive into my subject, and what I should add to my never ending TBR without feeling totally overwhelmed.
When I started building my own self-guided syllabi, I realized that everyone needs at least one guide to help answer the questions of who, what, and how long. I also realized that these syllabi could be useful to more than just myself. If you’re like me, curious, capable, and easily distracted, maybe I could be one of your guides, and my syllabi could be helpful to you too.
So no, I’m not being guided by Virgil himself through hell and into paradise. But it’s pretty close. And the good news is, you don’t need Virgil either. You just need a few good guides, and the courage to give in to your insatiable curiosity.
