The Marines Have Landed . . .

Chaos Scenario, a blog my younger brother is a contributor of, has made the The Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs. Cam also served in the Marines attaining the rank of sergeant, so way to represent!

Unchain Your Brain Part 2: Reading

Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4— Part 5

It is very probable—almost certain—that the great mass of men . . .were utterly unconscious, that their conditions, or their minds were capable of improvement. They not only looked upon the educated few as superior beings; but they supposed themselves to be naturally incapable of rising to equality. To immancipate the mind from this false and under estimate of itself, is the great task which printing came into the world to perform.

—Abraham Lincoln

Authors are the rock-star teachers. They spread knowedge and ideas across space and time to both challenge and enlighten our minds. Authors like John Locke, Adam Smith and Thomas Paine, still teach us today even though they have long since passed. I think that Stephen King put it best when he equated reading and writing with telepathy. As King explains, when we read books we are not just reading words, but thoughts. Through printed words we can read the thoughts of some of the greatest minds ever to exist on Earth as if we were in their heads when the thoughts occurred to them. It is much easier to read those thoughts and build on them, than it is to think them ourselves and expect to — in addition to that effort — come up with anything new.

Books are the technology that power progress. Technological advances have historically eliminated repetitive tasks. The printing press has made it easy for people to disseminate useful knowledge quickly and cheaply. Prior to the printing press, if you wanted to share knowledge with someone, you were limited by whom you could physically talk to, or by how many people you could write to. Prior to the printing press, humans were still capable of great ideas and advances, they were just incapable of spreading them quickly and efficiently. With the invention of the printing press, the advances of The Renaissance that took place in Florence Italy were able to spread to the whole of Europe and led directly to the Age of Enlightenment. In turn the Age of Enlightenment gave birth to modern democracies.

In truth, I expected to find that reading was essential in my research of learning. Still, I’m amazed at how indispensable a tool reading was among the open-source educated. Even George Washington, who is more noted for his bravery than his intellect, used reading as an indespensible tool in developing his good judgement. When George Washington realized that he would likely be in command of the Continental Army, one of his first actions was to order six books on the subject. Washington had never commanded a unit larger than a regiment so when he realized that the had a lot to learn, he turned to books.

Even though he had ready access to Lord Fairfax’s impressive library as a teenager, George Washington seems not to have a reputation as a reader among historians. For instance Joseph J. Ellis, in His Excellency, George Washington, gives the impression that Washington did not read excessively. There is evidence, however, to the contrary. Consider the following passage from Henry Cabot Lodge’s George Washington:

. . .the idea sometimes put forward that Washington cared nothing for reading or for books is an idle one. He read at Greenway Court and everywhere else when he had a chance, and he read well and to some purpose, studying men and events in books as he did in the world, and though he never talked of his reading, preserving silence on that as on other things concerning himself, no one ever was able to record an instance in which he showed himself ignorant of history or of literature. He was never a learned man, but so far as his own language could carry him he was an educated one.

The key phrase about Washington’s reading is that he read to some purpose. We see in Washington a process of problem solving in which reading was an integral part. As the colonies were gearing up for war, Washington ordered the aforementioned six books on war fighting. While the thought of Washington cramming for war like a student at mid-terms may seem odd, Washington was by his own admission, unqualified for the job.

We see his problem-solving pattern emerge again when he became President. Once in office he sent for all the papers of each department of the confederation, read them and took notes. He then summarized all of the contents of each document. He did this thoughout his presidency when dealing with official documents. As Cabot stated, “He knew more at the start about the facts in each and every department of the public business than any other one man, and he continued to know more throughout his administration.” Even in retirement the pattern emerged where, according to Ellis, he would schedule two hours a night for reading (mostly current events) and correspondence.

It appears Washington read to ensure that he was as prepared as he could be for the monumental tasks that were his. His reading shaped his thinking and usually preceded action. In other words, reading for Washington was not an idle leisure pursuit. It was necessary research to inform and guide his actions and choices. Informed decisions lead to good judgment—a defining characteristic of George Washington.

Given the consistency of the pattern, and Washington’s elusive nature as a biographical subject (he rarely wrote or talked about himself) it’s fair to assume that he at least could have been a more avid reader than historians give him credit for. Regardless, whether avid or sporatic, reading was an important strategy for learning in the education of Washington.

Two of Washington’s most trusted generals, Nathanial Greene and Henry Knox, were both open-source educated as well — and largely through books. Knox was a book-seller prior to the revolution, and Greene frequented his shop. Both men believed one could become educated by studying books, and both men proved indispensable to the cause of the revolution, as did another of Washington’s open-source educated friends, Benjamin Franklin.

As an apprentice at his brother’s print shop Franklin would sneak books away from the shop and read well into the night. Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin, An American Life, states that books were the most important formative influence in Franklin’s life. Some of the books Franklin read, such as Cotton Mather’s Bonifacias: Essays to Do Good, and Daniel Dafoe’s An Essay upon Projects shaped Franklin’s thinking about the importance of forming volunteer community organizations and associations. He also read and was influence by many of the authors of the Enlightenment, such as John Locke and David Hume.

In Franklin’s club for mental and community improvement, the Junto, the members thought it would be useful to pool their books into one place. This allowed each of the members of the Junto the ability to study what the other members had been studying. Through this effort the first lending library in America was born.

As a writer, Franklin himself became a rock-star teacher with the publication of his autobiography. Franklin cared deeply about his fellow man, and used his autobiography to convey the lessons he had learned in his own meritocratic rise to prominence. He consciously was trying to create an American archetype that other American’s could emulate. And emulate Franklin they did. Franklin’s autobiography influenced many great Americans, including Abraham Lincoln.

In spite of his eloquence, Abraham Lincoln was our country’s least formally educated president. He had less than a year of formal schooling. By today’s standards, what Lincoln received would amount to a kindergarten or first grade education. He lived in a log cabin with a dirt floor until the age of ten surrounded by a family that lacked literacy. His father, Thomas Lincoln, could barely sign his own name. His birth mother signed her name with an “X.” Where Benjamin Franklin, The Wright brothers, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell would benefit from well-read and even educated families, Abraham Lincoln did not have even that. How then, did this man born into the woods of Kentucky, make himself worthy to contend for and win the highest office in the land?

Simply put, the people Lincoln chose to emulate were not the ones in his immediate surroundings. Lincoln read constantly throughout his life. In his reading he met with men of a different time that he consciously chose to emulate, notably George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Lincoln biographer, William Lee Miller, writes dismissively about Lincoln’s reading of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, stating, “Although Lincoln apparently did read, at some time in his youth, that ubiquitous American classic The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin . . .he never refers to it.” I disagree with Miller’s characterization of the effect of Franklin’s autobiography on Lincoln. While it may be true that he never referred to it, there can be a lot ascertained by judging the effects of the book on Lincoln by his actions. Franklin’s autobiography would have reinforced Lincoln’s eerily similar approach to Franklin’s method of improving his mind if it was not itself directly responsible for it.

Franklin’s autobiography touted by Carl Van Doren as “the first masterpiece of autobiography by a self-made man,” would have had particular resonance with the ambitious young Lincoln. It would provide a road map out of poverty for those who wished to follow Franklin’s example. Franklin was keenly aware that his biography could have this effect and was careful to craft his image as a striving pilgrim from humble beginnings. Franklin writes, “Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity, the conducing means I made use of, which with the blessings of God, so well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.”

Through imitation or not, Lincoln’s behavior mirrored Franklin’s. When Franklin declared, “From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books,” it’s hard not to imagine Lincoln sensing its importance as a road map out of obscurity. Lincoln, like Franklin, became a great reader. His love of reading starting in childhood but lasted throughout the rest of his life. While in Congress, Lincoln secured lodging across the street from the Library of Congress where he spent so much time reading that his fellow congressmen labeled him a “book-worm.”

Perhaps this is coincidental, but the young Lincoln had the inclination to rise above his circumstances, and Franklin’s autobiography showed him that it was possible as well as prescribed a course of action. Furthermore, it’s the course of action that Lincoln fatefully took. I chose Franklin and Lincoln to study because they are both simply open-source educated, not because I suspected there was a closer connection. That was a surprise. Like the rest of the open-source educated alumni, they exhibit the same pattern for learning. It’s fascinating to me that Lincoln, whose pattern for learning mirrors Franklin’s, read Franklin’s book which Franklin wrote in the hopes that others, like Lincoln, would follow his example. So, yes, it could be coincidental that they follow the same learning pattern, but I think it is more probably causal. In other words, without Franklin, or more accurately, without the book Franklin wrote about his life, we might not even know that Abraham Lincoln ever existed.

Franklin’s wasn’t the only biography that influenced Lincoln—so was Washington’s. He read the inaccurate but heroic version of Washington’s life by Parson Weems where Washington’s honesty is manifested in his inability to fib about cutting down a cherry tree. Although this story is a lie, it may have contributed to the development of Lincoln’s honesty so perhaps we can forgive Weems for it. Lincoln also read the biography of Washington by David Ramsay.

Lincoln’s reading of American history was also broad. Another book Lincoln read in his youth was William Grimshaw’s celebratory History of the United States, as well as the Revised Statutes of Indiana, which in addition to legal texts, contained the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, and the first twelve amendments.

As a boy, books were scarce and as a result Lincoln would read and reread the books he could find. In addition to the books previously mentioned, Lincoln read and probably reread Pilgrims Progress, Aesop’s Fables, the Arabian Nights, Shakespeare’s plays, Macbeth, King Lear, Hamlet , and Richard III. He also read and was known to quote the King James Bible.

In Lincoln’s Virtues, William Lee Millers notes that Lincoln’s early childhood is surprisingly without mentors. While Lincoln does not praise anyone for his education or guidance, someone taught him to read—most probably during his one year of school as a young boy.

I find myself asking, how much help in education is essential? In Lincoln’s case, he had almost no help, not even from his family who couldn’t help him because they lacked literacy. While he would eventually find contemporaries and collaborators, who would help him become the man he yearned to be, until Lincoln’s early twenties, the only people who sustained him were long since dead—icons like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and William Shakespeare.

Reading as a key strategy among the open-source educated is still relevant. Michael Dell is a good example of how reading makes a difference. In the Dell family it was a given that Michael would go to college. Although he started on the path to medical school at the University of Texas, to the dismay of his parents, Michael dropped out at the age of 18 to pursue a business opportunity that we all know today as Dell computers.

In his book, Direct from Dell, it is clear that Michael Dell has an inquisitive mind and a drive for understanding. One of the ways that he tries to satiate his curiosity is through reading. When he was 12, for instance, he became interested in stamp collecting so he naturally—or at least naturally to him—started reading stamp journals. This knowledge was critical as he used it to embark on his first business venture (speculating on stamps) and made a cool $2,000.

Woven throughout his book is the thread that reading is a wellspring of new ideas and insights. Dell references magazines more than books. Passages like the following are common:

Reading through an electronics magazine one day, I saw a story about something called a chip set for a computer. Now everyone in the business knows what a chip set is, but when Gordon Campbell started a company called Chips & Technologies, the idea was new.

While references to magazine reading abound there are sparse references to books. It is certainly possible that Michael Dell reads a lot of books—he just did not reference them as influential in his own book the way he did the magazines he read. This may be because of the innovative nature of the computer industry itself in which Dell was immersed. Magazines, and not books, were probably the best source of information, especially in the early 90’s.

The one book that Dell does reference is Built to Last, which is written by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. Built to Last is the result of a research study done by two Stanford Professors who were interested in what variables allowed enduring, iconic companies to reach their vaunted stature. Specifically, Dell cites the book in reference to how his company sets “big hairy audacious goals.” It is clear that a good portion of the reading Dell does is for some purpose. Like George Washington, Dell reads to inform his decisions and guide his actions.

In building expertise, it is clear that the open-source educated used reading as an essential strategy to improve their minds. It helped prepare Washington for war, and helped make Franklin one of the wisest men of his age. From a generation away, Lincoln learned from the examples from both from printed words on a page. When Sir Isacc Newton proclaimed, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” the giants he was referring to were authors — the rock-star teachers.

Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4— Part 5

Chillin’

This one was drawn and inked by me, and colored by Turner Hilliker. Turner is a James Madison University student who comes in once a week to help with the T-shirt art. During the summer, when school was out, he worked full-time for us. As you can see, he does a bang-up job.

MCAS Cherry Point Security

My dad was stationed on Cherry Point when I was in high school. I was never arrested by the MPs, but I was stopped a time or two for looking suspicious. What can I say — I have naturally beady eyes.

Halloween Sketch

My little monsters at bedtime. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Open-Source Education – The Key to Meritocracy in America

Continued from part 2

Part 3 of 3: Proof of Knowledge

Not every college is going to give credit for learning to draw and animate (although mine did so it’s not unheard of). I advocate that where the credetial isn’t required, evidence of expertise is all that is needed. Still, one may argue that the main benefit of college IS the credential. Even if it is true in some instances, one might ask why the teaching institution and the credentialing institution have to be the same institution? I don’t think they do, and there is already a model for this kind of learning using tests. Most colleges will give credit for College Level Examination Program (CLEP) exams. There are other programs too, like the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES) exams, and General Record Exams (GREs). Most colleges will accept these exams and award credit for them in lieu of taking the course. Separating the acquiring of knowledge from the verification of knowledge is a critical innovation in making the pursuit of a degree open to everybody.

A friend of mine, Tony Haynes, used test outs and credits awarded for military experience extensively in pursuit of his degree. He even used the local library so he didn’t even have to buy books. Since taking CLEPs, DANTES, and GREs are free for those in the military, Tony had no out of pocket expenses. By using test-outs, Tony was able to stretch his GI Bill beyond a four-year degree. Because he tested out of all of his undergraduate work, he is now applying his GI Bill to his MBA classes at the University of Phoenix where he is currently enrolled. I suspect that the only reason Tony did not test out of an MBA program is because no institution offers tests for it yet. Perhaps this is a market opportunity that some organization will fill in the future, but I digress.

There is no reason why Tony’s method needs to be rare. People just need to be shown how to do it. Following Tony’s example, I used a hybrid of test-outs and attending classes to get my Associates degree in thirteen months. Others can do it too. Here is a small contribution to help the cause:

Passing the History of the United States I CLEP Exam

Whether studying for testing out for a degree, or studying to gain expertise, open source education makes effort — not money — the primary determinant of success. It is the key to universal education, lifelong learning, and has the power to make our democracy stronger by creating a more educated society. It can strengthen our public education system by giving hope back to those excluded by our current system — a system that at its heart has an exclusionary economic buffer that has led to stillborn potential among the poor. Access to knowledge is now abundant, and with that abundance we can march into tomorrow with the promise of education for all.

Back to part 2

Open-Source Education – The Key to Meritocracy in America

Continued from part 1

Part 2 of 3: The Gift of Knowledge

According to Eric S. Raymond in his essay about open-source development, “The Cathedral & the Bazaar,” the free market is an exchange economy based on the trading of scarce goods and services. Scarcity is what creates the value. Raymond argues that a gift economy, essential to the open-source concept, is based on abundance not scarcity.

Higher education, as we today know it, is largely based on the scarcity principle of a free market. The perception is that the students trade scarce money for scarce knowledge. The flaw in that thinking is that knowledge isn’t scarce — it’s abundant. What has been historically scarce is access to knowledge, not knowledge itself. At a key moment in human history, books became plentiful which led to the Age of Enlightenment and the birth of modern democracies. With the aid of this burgeoning collective knowledge, lovers of learning have, as mentioned before, banded together to create improvement clubs and organizations, but have always been limited by geography and the cost of communications. Even the success of Linux, as Raymond points out, tracks along exactly with the cheap access to the Internet. As the Internet grew, participation in Linux grew. Because of the Internet, geography has become irrelevant, and access to knowledge is no longer scarce.

In 1995, Bill Gates, in his book “The Road Ahead,” prophetically asks, “What if communication were almost free?” My answer, based on the road we are standing on, is that education will become almost free. This is already happening. Wikipedia, with its 8.29 million articles and growing shows us what is possible. In order for someone to be able to charge for dispensing knowledge, it must either be knowledge he or she owns the intellectual property to, like a book, or it must be a closely held secret. The knowledge dispensed in formal institutions are generally neither. Algebra is still algebra at Harvard. They don’t teach a secret version of algebra that no one else knows. And even if they did have secrets at the premier institutions, in order for a secret to be kept, everyone must keep it. In order for a secret to be leaked, only one person must leak it.

We’re not talking about leaking secrets, though; we’re talking about sharing knowledge. An educated populace is essential to a healthy democracy, so it is in societies’ best interest that knowledge be shared. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.” Wikipedia is proof that there are enough generous people out there willing to share knowledge freely. This generosity with information is key to open-source education.

Open-source is not only far less expensive, it is comparable, and perhaps superior to closed-source. Not only is Wikipedia free, it’s remarkably accurate. Raymond in his essay states what he dubs as “Linus’s Law” that “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” For Wikipedia this means that with enough people reviewing content, errors are likely to be caught and corrected. This isn’t theory anymore. Linux and Wikipedia prove the principle can work.

The preconditions and tools for wide spread open-source education exist. Personally, I use Squidoo.com as a platform for open-source education because it is easy to use. It makes sense that the open-source concept worked on a grand scale for the software development community first. The tools that made it possible were technology-based, and that technology was hard to understand and use. You had to know what a software developer knew. With tools like Squidoo, that has all changed. Squidoo is excellent aggregator of Internet technologies like YouTube, and Amazon that does not require the user to know HTML or the ins and outs of hosting services to create web pages that harness the full power of the Internet. A good Squidoo page, called a lens, can be structured like online syllabus that provides the map to learning new skills. All that is required is that experts leave breadcrumbs on their intellectual travels.

To demonstrate what I mean, I’ve created several tools for learning on Squidoo already. For instance, I created a lens about becoming an illustrator that aggregates the tools I’ve found most helpful in learning to illustrate.

Learn to be an Illustrator

Notice at how the end of the lens I link to Bryan Engram’s lens on becoming a character animator.

Learn to be a Character Animator

Bryan is an animator who has worked on the Transformers game for XBOX, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and Disney’s, The Wild. Like my lens, Bryan’s lens can be used as a roadmap for learning. Taken together with my lens, a diligent learner can travel a long way. As more intellectual areas get mapped, even more ground can be successfully navigated as long as experts like Byan are willing to share what they know.

Back to part 1 I Go to part 3

Open Source Education – The Key to Meritocracy in America

Part 1 of 3: Finding the Right Words

No one has ever been “self-educated.” The term itself is wrong. It is a misnomer that is evidence of society’s inability to find the right words to describe the education process behind those who have not been educated in formal institutions. Frederick Douglass, as an example, is described as “self-educated,” since he had no formal education whatsoever. “Self-educated,” however, is not descriptive of how Douglass, or others who learn outside of formal institutions, gain their skills and expertise. The term implies that a person had no help — that wisdom sprang spontaneously from within. Douglass, and others like Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Edison, were self-motivated, and self-directed perhaps, but they were not self-educated. There is, and always has been, a social aspect to education that is essential.

In the case of Frederick Douglass, he was taught to read by his Master’s wife, Sofia Auld, and when that instruction ended, he begged lessons from the poor white children in the neighborhood. After much struggle, he successfully learned to read by the age of thirteen. He put his reading to good use by devouring books and newspapers that came in his possession. As a young adult, he joined the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, a group made up primarily of freed blacks that “had high notions about mental improvement.” Upon gaining his freedom, he was mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, who edited the Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper. Douglass’ effort to become educated was boundless, but he did not become educated without the assistance of others. Douglass was not self-educated; he was open-source educated. He used that education to battle slavery with clear forceful prose in the newspaper he founded and edited — The North Star — and in his autobiographies.

The term “open-source” was coined to describe software projects, like Linux, that are products of a community and not an institution, such as Microsoft. The open-source model, given to us by the software development community, gives us the appropriate terminology that is applicable to education. Open-source does not mean watered down, even though it is free. According to Wikipedia, Linux contains about 30 million source lines of code and took an estimated 8,000 man-years of development time. The estimated value of the effort is placed at 1.08 billion dollars. Yet the software is free because the software community, unselfishly and collectively, collaborated to build it.

For something to be open-source it must be free (or nearly so), and collaborative. In terms of technology, we have the operating system, Linux, and the browser, Firefox. Open-source education examples include Frederick Douglass’ East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, Benjamin Franklin’s Junto, and Albert Einstein’s Olympia Academy. The Wright brothers collaborated primarily with each other, proving that the group does not need to be large to be effective. In all these examples, however, the participants were all limited to geographically imposed communication restraints. In other words, the members of these groups could only collaborate in real-time for free with people they could meet with in person. Now the world is a different place. While local groups can still be a catalyst for meaningful education, collaboration can now happen nationally, and even internationally, in real time, for free.

Part 2

T-shirt Design for BLT 1/6

Conan & Red Sonja Watercolor

Here is a picture I finished this weekend. I didn’t draw it; I just painted it. The original sketch was done by artist, Ben Caldwell and posted on Drawingboard.org. Ben did such a great job with the composition that I felt it needed to be painted.