About

Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact is a mostly self-taught person, as opposed to learning in a school setting or from a full-time tutor or mentor. – Wikipedia

In 1967, John Holt published “How Children Fail”. His book criticized traditional schooling, and was based upon his experienced as a teacher. In How Children Fail, he speaks of his belief that children love to learn. He argued that children are born with a natural curiosity, and that schools discourage natural exploration and learning. Schools base much of their evaluations on whether the student is right or wrong. The fear of being wrong keeps children from facing challenges, or exploring the unknown – the very things that teach us the most. Instead of being encouraged to follow their curiosity, children are encouraged to produce the right results, and nothing more.

Self-education allows learners to return to the natural, exploratory thinking Holt was speaking of. To put it in a phrase that many self-educators prefer (unschoolers, autodidacts, self-directed learners, whatever the word): self-education is learning in freedom. It puts the passion, the curiosity, back into learning. And that’s what Adversarian is all about.

Anna Hoffstrom, author of Adversarian, is a proud autodidact living in Finland. Her current studies focus on literature, linguistics, natural science, photography, psychology, philosophy, botany, and history. You can find her at twitter, and on facebook.