SELF-UNIVERSITY, THE NATURAL WORLD OF THE AUTODIDACT!

SELF-UNIVERSITY, THE NATURAL WORLD OF THE AUTODIDACT

PROFILES OF AUTODIDACTS 

“CHICAGO” WAYNE SANDER, ENGINEER

DR. DONALD FARR, ENGINEER/PSYCHOLOGIST

CHARLES D. HAYES, AUTHOR/PHILOSOPHER

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© September 21, 2014

SELF-UNIVERSITY, THE MODERN PROMISE OF PLATO

A number of coincidental things have recently tumbled into place and penetrated my consciousness, thanks to e-mail and the Internet.  They concern something common to us all, and revolve around the concept of the autodidact.  

A FORMER HIGH SCHOOL CLASSMATE WRITES:

Jim,

I am sure this article would not otherwise rise to the level of attracting your attention (or many others outside this area).  But since we share a small bit of the same geographical history I thought you might enjoy a brief respite from your all-encompassing intellectual pursuits.

See http://www.ces.sdsu.edu/blog/2014/08/osher-student-closing-in-on-200th-course/

Regards

Wayne (:>))

THE ARTICLE: 

“Osher Student Closing in on 200th Course!" 

Suzana Norbert

August 27, 2014 

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute - Student Profile

 This is a profile of Wayne Sander with Osher's Marivi Soliven and Susan McBeth.

“Chicago” Wayne Sander’s upbringing in a Midwestern Mississippi River town to a blue-collar family that valued hard work and skilled labor over higher education gave no indication that one day he would excel at not only higher education, but education for pure intellectual recreation.

“The narrative I grew up believing was that college and university was for spoiled rich kids who were too lazy – and probably incompetent – to earn an ‘honest living,’” said Sander.

As such, he put in only enough effort to maintain a C average in high school. “Seven years later, with a wife and two small children, working a seven-day rotating shift in a chemical factory, the truth regarding the value of education finally revealed itself.

Without the benefit of further education, I was destined to a lifetime of relatively mindless work, employing a biorhythm-destroying schedule that was only sustainable with copious quantities of black coffee and Alka-Seltzer.”

So with only one high-school science class and minimal math under his belt, Sander concluded that the way out was a degree in engineering. “As ridiculous as that aspiration now seems, we sold our little house, my treasured T-Bird and took our modest savings to embark on what most considered a ‘fool’s errand,’” he said.

Four and one-half years later, he proudly accepted his degree in mechanical engineering from San Diego State University, having worked full-time for all but one semester. He continued on to finish a graduate degree at night, while working as an engineer by day. Along the way, he decided that in his retirement, he’d like to return to campus, possibly as a part-time faculty member. He did in fact return – decades later – but again as a student, completing a second graduate degree at age 70.

“Directly following completion of that degree, I actually fulfilled my earlier aspiration by accepting a position as an affiliate professor in SDSU’s College of Engineering as part of a program called Project Lead the Way,” said Sander. “It’s where high-school science teachers are taught to teach introductory engineering classes as part of their curriculum. It’s also designed to attract female and minority students to the engineering field. A great program.

It was during this on-campus exposure that I discovered the Osher program. It’s a virtual smorgasbord of educational offerings … a myriad of previously unexplored and surprisingly fascinating subjects. It’s also addictive.”

Addictive indeed. The Osher Institute at SDSU offers intellectual adventure for students age 50 and better, and Sander took his first course in the spring of 2006. He has since breezed through 195 more, on topics ranging from philosophy, history, and human aggression; to democracy, morality and musical theater.

“My first semester was incredible in the offerings and the level of instruction,” said Sander. “The three most memorable that semester were The Dawn & Twilight of Science, a four-session class by Bruno Leone, a spellbinding lecturer and concert pianist. Here is truly a world-class lecturer, the likes of which were absent in my previous exposure to higher education.

“Also offered that semester was a course entitled U.S. Supreme Court: Who Elected Them Anyway? by Gary LaFleur, a knowledgeable and gentle lecturer who destroyed my mostly negative stereotypical vision of attorneys.

“And an unforgettable course entitled Impolite Subjects; Sex, Religion & Politics by Rolf Schulze.

It’s the only class I ‘had’ to repeat. A memory is indelibly etched in my mind. It was toward the last of the six-session course. One class member, a frail, stern-looking lady with her grey hair tied back in a bun, resembled a second-grade teacher I had – one that my grandfather had told me ‘She was an old lady when I was in the second grade.’

This widowed lady raised her hand and softly said, ‘You know, a one-night stand now and then is nice, but I really miss the continuing companionship of a committed partner.’ A really poignant sharing with our class by a woman whose name I can’t recall. One who earned my everlasting respect for both her bravery and for this program that allowed and encouraged her to crack open the window to our rarely shared humanity.”

Bravery. Humanity. Friendship. Camaraderie. Potlucks. Edventures. Even a reunion of long-lost college roommates. It’s all waiting to be found at the Osher Institute.

By the way, “Chicago” Wayne is not from Chicago. He chose the nickname as a result of his attempt to teach his wife’s infant grandson new words. The little boy found the word hilarious. “Each time he heard it, he nearly fell off his chair. But he also thought it was my name,” said Sander. “So in that family I became ‘Chicago.’ But because it’s distinctive and has three explosive syllables, I found it useful for dinner reservations where they call your name. In addition, hostesses and others – regardless of interaction frequency – never forgot your name.”

With or without the Chicago portion of his name, Wayne Sander has already become a legend at SDSU’s Osher Institute.

*     *     *     

PROFILE OF DR. DONALD FARR

Dr. Don, as I call him, like Wayne Sander, grew up in my sleepy little Mississippi Valley town of Clinton, Iowa.  

He went to high school at the North End of Clinton, or Lyons, and graduated from Lyons High School, while Wayne Sander and I graduate from Clinton High.  

All three of us graduate the same year, all three from working class families, and all three have had international careers.

Like Wayne Sander, Don expected to labor in some factory.  Once out of high school, he joined the Curtis Lumber Company, a Clinton industrial plant making finished products out of wood, and shipped all over the world.   

The Curtis Lumber Company was like a vestigial organ from another time.  

In the early twentieth century, Clinton was the lumber capital of the world turning sawdust into gold as logs were floated down the Mississippi River to Clinton from Minnesota and Wisconsin, and sawed into lumber and finished products.

When the lumber forests were depleted, the mills in Clinton shut down, and scores of millionaires left town, but not Curtis Lumber Company.  It is still making sashes and doors, cabinets and other finished products.

As it wasn't in the stars for Wayne Sander to be a laborer in a factory, the same was true of Dr. Don.  

He went into the US Navy, and the navy sent him back to school.  At first he wasn’t overjoyed, wanting to go back to being a sailor, but gradually made the transition and saw it as his lot in life.

*     *     *

DR. DON WRITES: 

  

I got my BS at San Diego State University.  I helped form National University, started a new graduate program (Engineering Technology) and completed my Masters (Industrial Technology) there while teaching a class, lecturing in several, all while working full time as a researcher at General Dynamics in San Diego, CA.  Went on to complete my Doctorate (Engineering Psychology- Human Engineering) at California Pacific University.

*     *     *

Dr. Don went on from there to become a NASA scientist in ergonomics designing and testing the internal accommodations for comfort and efficacy of space capsules for astronauts, working for NASA more than thirty years. 

Then, despite several physical maladies including a broken spine, eye disease and diabetes, he found the time to teach, work as a volunteer to Operation Gratitude (for American military personnel stationed abroad), to keep up with his discipline so as to mentor graduate students at several universities, to maintain an e-mail “Memories” network of several hundred stretched across the globe, of mainly former residence of Clinton, Iowa, collating and dispersing these messages daily to interested parties.

 

Like Wayne Sander and yours truly, now in our 80’s, Dr. Don has not slowed down.  He says he enjoys helping people, and must "keep on, keep'n on." 

He and Wayne Sander personifies the wisdom of the Shakespeare:

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help others without helping himself."

*     *     *

AUTHOR/PHILOSOPHER CHARLES D. HAYES, 

QUINTESSENTIAL AUTODIDACT

In the early 1990’s, I received a manuscript from a man in Alaska, who told me he worked for British Petroleum, and had written a book, and was wondering if I would give it a look.

This kind of thing happens often to people who write books.  I often ignore the request or write a curt note that I wish the prospective author well.  That was not the case with this manuscript.

I started to read it, made notes and comments on the margins of the pages, finally reading the complete manuscript, then sitting there, pausing and saying to myself, “Wow, can this guy ever write!”

It went beyond that.  Charles Hayes was obviously well read and an original thinker with a clear point of view, and a passion to express it. 

I shared my regard for the writing with my wife, BB, and said I was going to send the book back with my marginal comments. 

“You will do no such thing!" she declared, then more softly, "Jim, he won’t have any idea what you’re saying because nobody can read your handwriting,” which was true.

So, I typed my comments, which amounted to a small book in themselves.  

“Do you think he will be offended?” I asked her.

She looked at me with that beautiful twinkle in her eye, and said, “You’d die to have someone do that with your writing.”  

It was true.  It was also true that it has never happened.

That was my introduction to Charles D. Hayes, a self-confessed high school dropout, an ex-US Marine, a petroleum worker, and a guy I suspect read as much if not more than I did. 

That first book was “Proving You’re Qualified: Strategies for Competent People without College Degrees" (1995).

He would follow that with “Self-University” (1996), “Beyond the American Dream: Lifelong Learning and the Search for Meaning in a Postmodern World” (1998), “Training Yourself: The 21^st Century Credential” (2000), “Portals in a Northern Sky,” (2003, a novel), “The Rapture of Maturity: A Legacy of Lifelong Learning” (2004), and others.

*     *     *

CHARLES D. HAYES WRITES:

Jim,

I have a slew of essays on the LA Progressive under my name of the list of authors. I thought you might find this one of interest.

http://www.laprogressive.com/police-abuse-driven-primal-instincts/ 

Charles D. Hayes

http://amazon.com/author/charlesdhayes

http://www.autodidactic.com/

http://www.septemberuniversity.org/          

http://self-university.blogspot.com/

http://septemberuniversity.blogspot.com/

If interested, check them out.

*     *     *

DR. FISHER’S FINAL THOUGHTS ON AUTODIDACTS:

Longshoreman turned philosopher never went to school.  He became blind as a child, his sight not restored until he was nineteen.   Once he could see, he discovered a voracious appetite for the printed word.

I’ve read most everything he’s written or written about him.  

In 1950, he collected his thoughts in a handwritten manuscript, and looked to see who was the best publisher to contact.  He chose Harper & Row, and sent his manuscript to that publisher.

The book was published in 1951 as “The True Believer: Thoughts of the Nature of Mass Movements.” 

I read the book when it came out, and thought although young, that it was different.  At the time, I had no idea that he was totally self-educated.

Then in the late 1960's, Hoffer appeared on CBS Television with pundit Eric Sevareid.  It was a fascinating two-hour free flowing conversation.  Instant fame followed.  The tag, “true believer” became part of our language to describe the "herd mentality."  

Hoffer is every man.  Yet, I doubt if he would be inclined to take hundreds of eclectic courses like Wayne Sander, or to collect impressive college credentials like both Wayne and Dr. Don.  I see him more like Charles D. Hayes, the autodidact.

He was asked where he got his ideas?  Was it from auditing university courses, listening to esteemed lecturers, or attending seminal seminars?

“I am like the fellow who stands on the street corner," he said, "Just waiting for what I'm looking for to come by."  He was talking about books that lit his fire.  I can relate to that.

It has been a stunning discovery in my dotage that I don’t like the intimacy of a discussion group, as clearly does Wayne Sander.  It should have come as no surprise having always preferred studying alone throughout my academic studies.  I don't like crowds, but paradoxically, love living in a city of millions of people.  

This is offered simply to point out that we autodidact are not a homogeneous group.  

Given these idiosyncrasies, people, from every quadrant of the globe are visiting my website, reading my blog and books (with all their malapropisms and solecisms) because they see me as one of them, struggling with what I am and what I have to the best of my ability, and without apologies.  

These readers touch my heart, people attempting to know themselves, love themselves, and respect themselves, people struggling against great odds to accept themselves in a world that is not always obliging. 

*     *     *

MEISTER ECKHART (13th century mystique) writes:

A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart.  We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves!  Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or bear’s, cover the soul!  Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.

We live in an eternal now, which in itself is always new.  The autodidacts you have been introduced to know this only too well.

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