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PhD Idea - Literacy and Oracy in American Autodidacts

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I like autobiographies, and I like education, and I like self-education. I've been thinking about doing a PhD and combining those subjects in some way. I came up with five autobiographies of Americans who largely taught themselves in advanced literacy and oracy. I went back and forth with an AI to see what that research and writing might look like. This is what I came up with. Basic PhD Research Proposal Working Title Making Themselves in Words: Autodidactic Education and the Self-Explanation of Self-Formation in American Autobiography Possible subtitle: Literacy, Oracy, and Self-Directed Education from Benjamin Franklin to Louis L'Amour Proposed Field The project could be situated within History of Education, American Studies, Intellectual/Cultural History, or Education, and is particularly suitable for a cumulative PhD or PhD by publication. Research Topic This project examines how prominent American autodidacts explained their own education and self-formation in autobiograph...
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To Abigail in the Distant Future

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It's difficult to write a letter about someone you've only known for a year, for them to read many years later, especially because you're a baby but I'm writing to you as an adult. Yet, this is exactly what I shall do. You are an oddly happy baby. I've spent half of your life so far being away on trips to Central and South America by myself, and to Alaska and Europe with your grandmother. Even now I'm preparing to leave in a week for China. Yet, each time I return you still like me. This is probably the most interesting story I have with you so far. After you had started to crawl, but before you started to walk, you had been getting over to the stairs but couldn't get up them. I've taught all of your siblings how to climb stairs at granny's house because it's a good spot with just two carpeted stairs between walls. Most people were outside this particular day. I was sitting on the couch. Your mother handed you to me as she headed out as well. You...
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My Opinion on 5 Works about Education, Teaching, and Learning - Volume 14

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In this article we'll see the differences and similarities between medieval and modern concerns in education from Charlemagne and King Alfred, to Leo Tolstoy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Hannah Arendt. 'Admonitio Generalis' by Charlemagne 789 AD Charles the Great, King of the Franks, was the first ruler to conquer and unite much of Europe as the Carolingian Empire after the fall of the Roman Empire 300 years earlier. He worked on sorting out problems in the church, including dealing with education. The 'Admonitio Generalis' reforms helped spur the first medieval renaissance, called the Carolingian Renaissance. It consists of 82 chapters. Many of the chapters are only one sentence each, and deal with what priests can and cannot do. Chapters 71 through 74 are about education: "Capitulum 71 That bishops and abbots carefully correct the canonical and catholic books, and that the priests read and understand them and preach according to their meaning. Capitulum 72 Let s...
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An Alternative to Potions and Incantations

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Depression and anxiety are a normal part of the human emotional experience. If someone says they haven't been sad or worried, they are exaggerating or lying, to you and maybe to themselves. The real question is, how do we deal with them? How do we recover from them and not get stuck? There are two normal answers to how to deal with negative emotions. These have been called different things throughout history. We might think of them from older civilizations as potions and incantations. In a more modern sense they are often called medicine and counseling, or pharmaceuticals and therapy. In the most basic sense, it's drugs and words. Drugs and words are powerful things. They change how we feel, think, perceive, and behave. The problem with drugs is that they have side-effects. Drugs often cause worse problems than they are even intended to solve, and people often realize that too late. The names of the drugs change. New ones are invented. But the same patterns keep repeating. This...
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My Teaching Origin Story - Try One

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In my mid-20s I was a member of four Toastmasters groups at once, which are training and support groups for public speaking. Giving speeches to each other you learn quite a bit about a person, and they learn quite a bit about you. After one session in Muskegon, Michigan on a Friday a few of us went out to lunch. We often did that, just to talk afterward. Everyone was older than me. The two most common people that I went to lunch with after that meeting were both over 80. One had been a Toastmaster for more than 50 years. On this particular day I asked them, "What do you guys think I should be doing? Like, for a job or career?" The retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel thought about it for a moment and said, "I see you teaching something." I was a little surprised and asked, "What?" "I'm not sure." he responded, "Something. Maybe to kids, maybe to adults." I looked at the other guy there, a successful real estate agent, and said, ...
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