DOn’t GO BACK TO SCHOOL A Handbook for Learning Anything KIO STARK Front Matter 1 Additional Praise for Don’t Go Back to School “In my daily life as a Columbia professor, I’m constantly trying to explain to students why a passionate love for learning doesn’t necessarily translate into doing graduate work in the humanities. I am incredibly grateful to Kio Stark for this wonderful book that explains the matter much better than I could myself. I intend to put it into the hands of everyone I know who wants to pursue a life of learning but isn’t necessarily well suited for a life inside the academy.” — Jenny Davidson, author of The Magic Circle and Breeding: A Partial History of the Eighteenth Century “Kio Stark’s appreciation of real learning over formal education is particularly inspiring at a moment when the cost of a decent grad school far exceeds the lifetime salaries of the professionals it graduates. As a lifelong learner myself, I don’t envy those who will never experience at least a few years in the safety and camaraderie of a college campus — but thanks to this engaging book and Stark’s enthusiasm, I have new faith in our ability to transcend the quads and forge new academic frontiers.” — Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now “The most important learning revolution today is not the open-sourcing of mas- sive online courses by major universities — although that is certainly useful. The most important learning revolution today is the kind of independent-yet-social learning that digital media and networks afford. School — brick-and-mortar or bits-and-bytes — is no longer the exclusive purveyor of learning. But technologies and networks are only effective to the degree that people know how to use them. That’s where Kio Stark’s Don’t Go Back To School is potentially more valuable than any 100,000 student online course. Humans are natural learners and school is not only not the sole gateway to learning, it often dulls and sedates our natural thirst for learning. Through examples of successful independent learn- ers, Stark gives us a practical and inspiring vision of how to go about learning in an environment where co-learners, rich curricular materials, and abundant, free, or inexpensive information and communication tools are available.” — Howard Rheingold, author of Net Smart: How to Thrive Online and Smart Mobs DON’T GO BACK TO SCHOOL DON’T GO BACK TO SCHOOL DOn’t GO BACK TO SCHOOL DOn’t GO BACK TO SCHOOL A Handbook for Learning Anything KIO STARK Copyright © 2013 Kio Stark All rights reserved. Cover and book designed by Ian Crowther/Familiar Studio Edited by Mandy Brown Copyedited by Krista Stevens Cover photo by David Gonsier ISBN 978-0-9889490-2-7 DontGoBackToSchool.com Greenglass Books With support from Gus Rojo and Christopher Warnock Photo credits Quinn Norton, p. 24, © Jesse Vincent Christopher Bathgate, p. 96, © Christopher Rita J. King, p. 30, © James Jorasch Bathgate Brad Edmondson, p. 36, © Kristine Larsen Caterina Rindi, p. 104, © Troy Sandal Dan Sinker, p. 40, © Janice Dillard Jeremy Cohen, p. 110, © Andreas Serna Benjamen Walker, p. 48, © Dorothy Hong Simone Davalos, p. 116, © Scott Beale Dorian Taylor, p. 54, © Julie Karey Harper Reed, p. 124, © OFA Molly Danielsson, p. 58, © Mathew Lippincott David Mason, p. 136, © Jonathan Opp Astra Taylor, p. 66, © Deborah DeGraffenreid Karen Barbarossa, p. 156, © Howard Pyle Jim Munroe, p. 72, © Stephen Gregory Cory Doctorow, p. 162, © Paula Mariel Salischiker Molly Crabapple, p. 80, © Julianne Berry Ken Baumann, p. 86, © Jake Michaels Kio Stark, p. 213, © Bre Pettis David Hirmes, p. 90, © David Hirmes For Nika Stark Pettis Introduction 1 Interviews Journalism Quinn Norton, Technology journalist 23 Rita J. King, Nuclear power expert 29 Brad Edmondson, Demographic analyst 35 Dan Sinker, Journalist & programmer 39 General Knowledge Benjamen Walker, Philosopher & podcaster 47 Dorian Taylor, Design consultant 53 Molly Danielsson, Sanitation expert 57 Film Astra Taylor, Documentary director 65 Jim Munroe, Novelist & filmmaker 71 Arts Molly Crabapple, Illustrator 79 Ken Baumann, Actor 85 David Hirmes, Photographer 89 Christopher Bathgate, Sculptor 95 Entrepreneurship Caterina Rindi, “Faux” MBA 103 Jeremy Cohen, Startup founder 109 Simone Davalos, Roboticist & event planner 115 Technology Harper Reed, Software engineer 123 Pablos Holman, Inventor 129 David Mason, Product manager 135 Sciences Luke Muehlhauser, Scientific researcher 141 Zack Booth Simpson, Computational biologist 145 Extra Credit Karen Barbarossa, Product designer & writer 155 Cory Doctorow, Blogger & novelist 161 How to Be an Independent Learner Choose a learning method 171 Find learning resources 174 Evaluate sources of information 177 Stick with it 179 Get a job 181 Resources 185 Acknowledgments 199 Interviewees 201 Funders 203 Introduction School is broken and everyone knows it. Public schools from kindergarten to graduation have been crumbling for decades, dropout rates are high, and test scores are low. The value — in every sense — of a college education and degree is hotly contested in the news every day. Students face unprecedented debt in an economy with a dwindling middle class and lessening opportunities for so- cial mobility. This has a significant effect on lives and on the economy itself. The student debt crisis reaches through every facet of people’s lives. It affects the housing market as grads with debt are likely to be refused for mortgages, the auto industry as they put off buying cars, consumer spending in general, and decisions to start families. After college, grad school can seem like a refuge from the weak economy, which piles up further debt without clear returns. Col- lege students who go on to graduate school also delay the dilemma of the weak job market by using their continued student status to dodge familial pressure to succeed economically. They do this even as it becomes clearer and clearer every day that degrees may not increase their likelihood of getting a job. This book is a radical project, the opposite of reform. It is not about fixing school, it’s about transforming learning — and making traditional school one among many options rather than the only option. I think all the energy and mon- ey reformers spend trying to fix school misses the real problem: we don’t have good alternatives for people who want to learn without going to school, for peo- ple who don’t learn well in school settings, or for those who can’t afford it. Because while you don’t have to go to school to learn, you do have to figure out how to get some of the things that school provides. Since most of us grew up associating learning with traditional school, we may feel at sea without school to establish an infrastructure for learning. This consists of things such as syllabi to show us an accepted path, teachers to help us through it, ways to get feedback on our progress, ready-made learning communities, a way to develop professional networks that help with careers later, and physical resources like equipment and libraries. In its best and most ideal form, school provides this infrastructure. IntroductIon 1 But not very many people get to go to school in its best and most ideal form, and my research shows that many learners feel they do it better on their own. People who forgo school build their own infrastructures. They create and bor- row and reinvent the best that formal schooling has to offer, and they leave the worst behind. That buys them the freedom to learn on their own terms. I speak from experience. I went to graduate school at Yale and I dropped out. I had been amazed that I was accepted, and even more so that I was offered a fellowship. Surely this was the fast track to something impressive. But leaving all that behind, to my great surprise, was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made. A gracefully executed quit is a beautiful thing, opening up more doors than it closes. I had invested long years and a lot of work in the degree I walked away from, but I also had innocently misguided reasons for wanting it in the first place. I was fresh out of college and my only thought was that I wasn’t done learning. Nobody had told me that liberal arts graduate school is professional school for professors, which wasn’t what I wanted to be. Here’s what my graduate school experience was like: I took classes for two years and learned one thing. It was not a fact, but a process. What I learned was how to read a book and take it apart in a particular way, to find everything that’s wrong with it and see what remains that’s persuasive. This approach is useful to people who are focused on producing academic writing, and it’s a reasonably good trick to know, but I could have picked it up in one course. I didn’t need two years, and it’s pretty annoying to only get to talk about books in such a limited way. My third year, on the other hand, was bliss. I was left alone for a year to read about 200 books of my choice. I spent that time living far from school in a house in the woods, preparing to demonstrate sufficient command of my field to be permitted to write a dissertation. This was the part of grad school where I really learned things. And for me, what was most significant about the year was that I learned how to teach myself. I had to make my own reading lists for the exams, which meant I learned how to take a subject I was interested in and make myself a map for learning it.