EDUCATION AND PURPOSE

EDUCATION AND PURPOSE.

To educate is to give intellectual, moral, and social instruction to an individual or to train or give information about a particular subject.

Education, according history seems to have a different meaning from what we have now. From the Greek word educare, education meant “leading out”. In essence education was a means of driving an innate capability into activity from its long hibernation. The knowledge is therefore accepted as a latent skill that needs to be awakened for its use. Education therefore served as means of arising from unawareness to the awareness of ones innate capabilities known as talents in order to serve a purpose in social development.

As education was mainly evolving from the Greek society, there was a reason for its practice. According to history the Spartans educated their young men by leading out the fighting skill that was innate to its physical manifestation. Their purpose was to keep their town safe and strong from enemies… no need for walls but the strong young men who could rip out the hearts of three men at a time. So the Spartans had a social reason for educating their young men; they needed security. The purpose of education is therefore realized by finding the true sole aim of a society. Whether being security, economical improvement, cultural heritage and so forth… there is a purpose for every student and every teacher. A teacher and his student were always connected by this purpose, this aim, this idea.

THE PILOT OUTREACH

                                    

In preparation for the outreach; to educate the youth on the importance of self-education.
We sent out a few notes to the Junior Secondary School graduates, and held a short discourse on education and its purpose.

 
We tried discussing a couple of ideas that we believed were vital to the whole education subject.

What is the  meaning of education:

The original meaning of education , comes from the latin word ēducāre, which means to "bring out".
The closest word to that is educe; which means to bring out or lead out something latent or potential.

If this is the original meaning of education, then we've missed it. Because the educational system here, is doing something that is totally the opposite of what education is supposed to be.

                                                
We drew an example from the Spartans and how Lycargus
brought out the warrior-ship in the spartan young men.

 
The young men I believed were inspired. We asked them to take the fate of their education into their hands .We gave them a reason to pick up a book related to their passion.
Since all three were interested in becoming scientists, we offered them a couple of books on Richard Feyman's talks and life, to inspire them.

Pick up a passion, pick up a book

Reading, making a change in your community

For the past days, I have seen so many kids in my community.
Its not that I don't see kids in my community , but I have seen so many kids who daily remind of the need to reach out and make a difference.
I see all these kids who have no idea what to do with their lives, we are all inspired at certain point in our lives.
In our search for answers in this world , we are tempted everyday to settle for mediocrity , to go with the crowd.
Get fast money, and ride in cars. Throwing away all the potential one might have inside because he didn't just have the right answers.

This is one of the powers of reading. Reading has the power to inspire many of these growing kids to become creative potentials in this country.
There are countless stories of people who picked up a book and their lives changed forever.
The story of the Kenyan boy who at the age of 11 was able to harness the wind, because he stepped into a library and picked up a book, is a story that reminds us everyday why  these children should have an opportunity to have access to books.

My team and I have this mission on our heart, we know the power of books and we will go to all lengths to make a difference.
Eselfone bringing libraries to communities  and the essence of self-education to the people.

You can support the cause, make a difference.

the seminar

Working on the seminar
A whole lot of things involved
We dont have to be selective
Trying to get to lots of hearts to follow our lead
Yet we need hearts that in the most willing to....

Its easier when they are willing
But then on the other hand ur task will be of no sense if there's no love
And love is not selective
It does all things with enthusiasm and purpose..

We will follow through suit........
We are taking baby steps as usual.... but the goal is to paint this picture clear cut...
And we pray we achieve that

Makes sense right?

I am sitting here right now
And I am thinking hard
Its hard to find words to express what is on my mind
All the thoughts coming to mind
The scenes of the past three days
The emotions cluttered in  my hearts depth
Its hard to find words
But I want so bad to say something
And say it with meaning
Words are crucial, yet let me let it out anyway without care

Children walking all around, doing all sorts of menial jobs
Do they choose this?
I see some mothers too with their babies at their back,working hard
And not long ago,  I was walking past some men digging a pit and one said;" charley life had O"..
I saw a drunk the other day, he had children, he had a wife and he looked really miserable on sight... immediately my thought drifted to  his children..

I look around my community and I try to see what the future holds for the youth, especially young guys of my age.
They are all so ambitious , and admire that so much. But all this energy is being directed wrongly, into all sorts of quick money schemes.

A lot of questions coming  through, but the one that seems most persistent is ; "why"
WHy?, what could be wrong,  all these people are living without hope for a better tomorrow....

I have mates who are out school who dont know what to do with themselves... they dont know what to become.. not that they are not ambitious enough, they  just dont where to direct all that energy.

I asked a couple of guys in SHS what they wanted to become 7 years from now and why. They just didnt know, and those who knew what they wanted to become just didnt know why they wanted to become that.

Its sad and I have been asking myself what is not being done, we are looking forward to educating the youth in this country to come develop this country into what.

I here rantings everyday about this issue and that issue.. about development, but what do we truly want this country to become and who and who are working towards this.

We live in a country where citizens feel they dont owe the nation nothing and the country owes them eveything, ridiculous!.
Looks like we are expecting the country to build us instead of we building the country.
We are expecting the country's natural resources to do all the magic.


Where do we want this country to go... we are building a structure and we dont even have a blue print of what we want. We copy blindy; yeah that guys building looks real cute the way they are building it, lets do something like that.

Hey, we need a dream.......
Every individual needs to know the dream and know his part in making it come to a reality
Too much talk makes no sense, I was taught it reduces productivity
Lets be real....
Lets know exactly where we want to be

Lets have a dream that will teach the people how to dream....
Yes,  a dream that unifies all and makes sense to all..

Checkout a society like Sparta they knew where they were going , well its democracy, cant force people to do stuffs, but for the sake of the growth of this country, lets employ the spartans style of dreaming.

Lets know what we want this country to become and lets train the kind of mind tools we need to achieve this.
Yet, until we know where want to go and what to become we wont know which tool to employ....
Dream, dream,dream..... makes sense right.

Individually, you  will unique force of your own, if only we will pick up a passion and pick a book. It will help you discover you and help others discover themselves too....
It will help you create the kind of educated picture we need to see and with you seeing that and helping others , we are on our way.

ALWAYS THINK OF A WAY YOU CAN GIVE RATHER THAN RECEIVE

Its been a beautiful day today, well its always beautiful, but I sometimes barely notice.
But its always beautiful experience to be and realize how beautiful the passing moment even is, it feels eternal.
I am really happy living in this experience, every becoming more and pushing towards perfection.
I am grateful.


Well this is the place where I get to talk about onething that I am really passionate about, reading; self-education.
There has been so much activity and neither Salifu nor I has had time to  update this blog.
Well will just be great to go straight ahead and talk about some of the things that has kept off the computer screen and these wonderful keyboards...lol
Yeah, having a little laugh.

The past weeks has been wonderful, met lots of great personalities and done real great things that makes me proud, and it somehow keeps affirming life is  beautiful.
We had the opportunity to share very interesting stuffs with the children at the Adaeso Presec School ,working with the World Reader.
Previous weeks we've shared subjects on DREAMS, SELF-RESPONSIBILITY, REFLECTION and ATTITUDE.
Its great what we in ourselves learned while interacting with these children.
I remember on the week when we talked about dreams, we told these young ones about the essence of dreams and the power in dreaming.
We got to the stage when I was asking what people would want to become and I asked this boy called Stanley, what do you dream of becoming and he says a missionary doctor, then the second question which follows which most of the kids were amiss with was the why question...why do you want to become a missionary doctor. His  answer is I want to become a missionary doctor because I see people are sick, in so many places and wish to travel and go help them...wow...his answer blows me away.
I wasnt really expecting it.
Last week Saturday was about ATTITUDE, after we had done the long talk about the essence of developing a positive way of responding to events around us, we brought a scenario to board.
The scenario was about two guys who wanted to be the greatest acoustic guitarists in the world and somehow on a journey to a class they ended up in an accident that got them both blind.
We asked the class what was the positive way of respond to this event and a lot of good answers are coming in, but I remember Stanley again because of  the previous answer he had given..
I asked him what do you think will be the most positive  way to respond to this situation and he says well, inability is not disability so I will strive on with  pursuing my dream, and the answer takes me by surprise again; what really hits me is " inability is not disability"
And there more wonderful stories I cant say here but I am just using Stanley's example... slowly but surely all these books these kids are reading and all the inspirational talk and other activities coming along with it is having a hold on the way these kids think and its just wonderful.
If slowly we are changing the way these kids think about their world then slowly we are changing their world.

@ PRESEC-ADAESO (Senior high school).
       Saturday, 14th May,2011
We started well, the weather was favorable and certainty about our predetermined program kept us moving. As scheduled, Samuel and I had to talk about passion in the art of reading.
We did just that, trying to instigate a reason for reading as a means of exploring more about things we are passionate about. We started by talking about passion and its traits so the students get to understand what their passions are, and how the intense innate desire compels and leads us into an unpredictable journey of exploration. We had some help from the dictionary on the kindles.
It was all cool until I had to talk about exploration as a trait of passion. I had taken my own experience as an example, talking about my pursuit towards the understanding of the topic of randomness versus determinism, how it later engulfed and made me explore other topics such as causality, certainty and uncertainty. Just then I was explaining randomness, that things just happened without the cause of other events and indeed it manifested.
It started raining heavily and we had not expected that at all.
So uncertainty crept in and few of us felt the program was going to be wrecked. We decided to be deterministic by following suit our programs as the weather changed. Samuel and I had to stop
because our voices couldn't pierce through the crackling noises of the iron roofing sheet. So we watched the volunteers from Ashesi take over.
 We became certain once more when the students engaged themselves in wonderful academic games. The games included spelling, and acting words or statements to partners.
So they picked some words from some stories on the kindles to test the spelling ability of the kids. Then we went on to play the "pick and act game" as it still rained heavily. This time I think I was inspired.
I saw the children  trying to bring words to life, doing all they could to tell their team mates a word or a statement without speech but mere action.
Among them was a tall boy hopping; his two arms fixed to his chest just like the tyrannosaurus. On the third hop I could hear the sound of his long feet pounding the floor and watching his hanged arms... I realised he was a man-kangaroo. I laughed because he had no pouch, no tail and no pointed face. Do actions speak louder than words?
I think actions themselves are words.
   The rain stopped, and so did the crackling noises of the roof. Samuel and I wrapped things up and took some questions from the students.
Joseph helped answer some questions as well about pursuing passions.
We all had fun learning and I think the worldreader is by far on the right path, not only reading but inspiring these kids to build the best future for themselves.
Being able to continue our program with the circumstances that befell, I think there is always a source of happiness around us, and all we have to do is to observe and discover what to learn at particular moments.

@ Adaeso

We had an opportunity to work with the world reader organization . The first  experience which we were waiting patiently for came on the 7/5/11
We  were to visit Adaeso Presbyterian school and read  with the children.
Worldreader is doing a wonderful job giving these children this incredible experience with the kindle.
Worldreader's efforts goes way beyond the threshold of getting books to the kids but also to the parents of the kids with the text to speech feature of the kindle.

I had time with some of the kids and just as I had believed, the books these kids are reading is making a wonderful impact in their lives.
One boy's favorite book was titled the champion runner. I asked him why that title is his favorite , and to my surprise he spoke about the resilience, humility and determination of a young boy who won the race competition of  the story.
He was inspired so much by the character in the story and told me, he was adopting the traits of the character in pursuing his dreams of becoming a pilot.
Wow.... I asked why did he choose to become a pilot and not any other profession. He said "its because that's the only way someone can get abroad " , so I asked whether he wanted to become a pilot just so, he could travel and see places... He said, no I want to become a pilot because I get to help the people traveling abroad and myself, as I make money and get to know places.
I was impressed because I felt the boy I had learned a great lesson which he didn't even know , that one has to give in order to receive.
And this my friends is the power of picking up a book, you learn something anyhow either consciously and unconsciously.
For me the vocabulary, expression and all , doesn't have more meaning than the inspiration these kids are going to pick up from every book they read.

Pick up a passion and then pick up a book
Reading speaks the message readily

WHERE TO READ

                     WHERE TO READ.

Words are hard to draw  out, as I keep struggling with my flow.Trying to write right, to impress, draw attention and at the same time drive my message home.
There is an issue at hand that I believe if not looked at might cause the retrogression of this country rather than its progress.

THE PROBLEM I SEE.

My days in school were full of unfulfilled fantasies.
I had always wondered when we were going to study one of my favorite subjects; electricity in Integrated science..
When it was time to learn all about it, I was disappointed , frankly speaking because I had no idea what the teacher had just taught.
My idea of leaning was to lead me on a path of exploration to help me to find out the wonders and tales of the discovery of a subject.
I didn't have lessons from one teacher , soon my Maths teacher came around, I liked Maths, the fact that I had the opportunity to find answers by manipulating numbers and operations..hmmm...but numbers didn't seem fun in the end...cos I just didn't know how to apply  a topic like functions to my everyday life.
Social studies wasn't bad at least, it had strings of tales and stories connected to it and I loved listening to how Dr.Kwame  Nkrumah and his fellas achieved their dream.
I have always wondered if Dr.Nkrumah hadn't written any books that would be worth discussing in class.

GETTING THE BOOKS..

Self education is done best if one gets to fetch all books he needs for free. We therefore see it necessary directing you to the best sources you can get a personal library for free.
Pick a passion and pick a book from the various websites listed. Hope you enjoy reading...
free books online:
www.freebookspot.com
ebookee.com
www.bartleby.com
www.gutenberg.org
www.readprint.com
onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu
www.dailylit.com
www.scribd.com
www.manybooks.net
books.google.com
en.wikisource.org
ww.sacred-texts.com
www.ccel.org

free audio books:
freebookspot.cc/Category-Audio Bookslibrivox.org
verkaro.org
www.loudlit.org
www.freeclassicaudiobooks.com
www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_Audio_Books_Project

READING AND JOURNALING

I sometimes wonder how come I have so much enthusiasm for reading these days.
Reading didn't seem like something really exciting at first
Especially anytime I picked up a book and saw countless pages of text without pictures.
I immediately felt bored, nothing instigated the will to start reading the first page and then
maybe continue to the next.
I can't remember exactly how I ended up in this stage of my life where, every now and then I
want to pick up a book about this or that and then start reading all about it.
It seems to me, I always have to develop a reason to pick up a book, and that reason might be the
fact that I want to get to know about something I like.
Or maybe just to have fun, imagining stuffs and as excited I am about movies, its cool sometimes
to picture a whole movie in your head while just reading words.
It is exciting to see words come alive the way they do, when you pick up a piece of story or novel.

The other day Faith, Salifu and I were taking a walk.
We were actually walking Salifu to the bus station to board a bus home...
This was after he had been to Faith's place to discuss genes and color of the skin with her.
Two biology students, trying to clear some doubts, well Salifu was quite certain of what he knew and Faith needed to settle some doubts she had about her complexion....she is fair and both parents are black
Well while we were walking Salifu to the station , he asked a question which was for me an interesting one.
He said " what do you guys think about this, Your passion can be your talent , but your talent cannot necessarily be your passion , right?"
Well Faith agreed, but I didnt , because I had my believes.
I always said there is nothing like talent , what I have to come to believe is someone is said to be talented at something because he developed an intense enthusiasm for it way before others did.
Well Faith disagreed, and gave me the talk about innate abilities, people born singers ,people born with the flair for dancing and many other things.
Well she was right, and I told her i agreed.......but I didnt totally agree.
Ok, so she is right but the case we all have this innate ability that can make us anything we want.
An innate ability that can cause to birth any kind of talent.
And this innate ability is in everyone.
This innate ability is desire.
You only need the right inspiration, and if you are able to aspire to perspire enough, you will become what you dreamed of being.
We see it everyday, skill always beats talent.
Yeah, learn that, no one is talented enough to beat skill.
Because skill never stops learning.....thats the core of it all...you end being fueled with passion
And thats what brings in all the results.

INSPIRE....THATS THE MESSAGE..... INSPIRE

INSPIRE....THATS THE MESSAGE..... INSPIRE

Its 17/11/2010, my brother is 9yrs and he can't read . Its not entirely his fault, nor mine. Circumstsnaces didnt permit a lot of things.
Now, I had to teach him reading and I realized I knew nothing about reading, I was amiss as at how I came about reading and saying all the words.
So I find a way to learn the sounds..basic phonetics...they termed it; aa. b3, ck3, d3 .......
Thinking about it right now, we have an enormous task as educators, not to only know what it is we are impacting to our students but to also be able to tell them why they are supposed to know it.
Teaching my kid brother the phonetics, I had to open his mind to the fact there was more to what he was learning , that after learning it will work some sort of magic which will enable him read.

KEEPING JOURNALS II

I will want to present a piece from my journal, usually sounds like poetry.... the way I write in my journal, maybe bcos I have been using journals ever since I saw my father used it..that will be around the time I was 11....
In this piece I thought about writing something I felt inside,it was an intuitive feeling to pen down, some sort of an idea I felt was true.
Its titled  Identity


It was only yesterday when i was 7 with less to worry about
I was running my bike to and fro the playing ground 
My mind not burdened with tomorrow , filled with the bliss of the present and yesterday fogged with many laughters of today.
I wonder why I cannot go back to being 7,8,9,10...
Cos right now I feel like I am on a journey 
A journey I started after I lost the pillar in my life 
I have come far with lots of answers yet I still search
Its like everyday there is a new questiion, a question you must find out and then answer

Life's many disillusioned metaphors caused by our many perceptions
Always ends us on a search 
A search to find what we want to become
A search to find fulfillment
A search to find all the good things we believe makes our life the righteous path we wish it to be
I see myself going through these many cycles , looking for answers to the many puzzles that I am even yet to uncover
I realized somehow we get to a  point in our life, when we begin to search
When we begin to search for all the things that  brings meaning to us
We begin to search for our identity
Identity..we begin to search for the one thing or things that brings the pieces of our life together
Many are doing this unconsciously and others are somewhat conscious
So we go on a journey to find ourselves
All who find their identity and work with it, find everything else
Its silly though how it turns out when you dont find you.
Everything around you seems kind of illy and opportunities out of reach.
I cant say how every individual can find himself or herself bcos its a journey every individual must take in his own
But I believe I can give  you a head start.
You know what they say; a journey of a thousand miles begins with a step, but a step in the wrong direction can put you in cycles for ages.
The right step here, on identifying yourself is first  identifying yourself with your source.

KEEPING JOURNALS

Journals are a special way of expressing oneself.
It goes well beyond just penning down words 
Its a way one communicates to himself 
The book and pen are just there for records sake
But the real depth of the journaling thing is unleashing thoughts, expressing how you feel about  something, a situation or an idea
It involves connecting pieces of ideas and sometimes making sense out of it.
It involves saying all you want without control.
Your journal is the part of you that wants to talk and wants to listen.
It doesnt restrict you to the form or way you need pour how you feel......
It has such attention and care n all you have to do is pour.....
Its always saying
Tell it all to me
And I will give it all back to you when you are ready


A reflection of how you felt yesterday can only help you grow, if any lesson is learned.
And it works, is like taping yourself while you reacted to that situation and then later you find out ...you didnt handle things quite well afterall.


Its like reading that book and saying what you thought, but after reading it again you find out there was more to the story than you were able to make out of it.


Tell it all to me
And I will give it all back to you when you are ready
Im jst a reflection yet a deep one.

Ok, its 21:32GMT  on my phone, I dont have a watch ,eventhough I love watches, I will get one of these days because it reminds me a lot of my father. He is always pausing and checking while talking to you , and as a child what I even liked the most was the mark the watch left on your wrist after you had worn for it a long time.
Well I just wanted to mention a few turn  ups about the whole project.
Right now, things are pretty dull, I haven't been able to take the initiatives needed to make things happen.
I did good for a while, going to the nearest school and starting out something with the students.(Liberty School @ Lomnanva).
I went there on several occassions  but other pressing issues came up and I had to sort them out, so I dropped the visits and the time wasnt right to continue for now.
But right now I have plans about designing some posters and starting out something for the students who are graduating in no time.... I think by the end of this month they will be out and it will be great to organize some kind of  talk for these minds, budding minds they are... to prepare their minds to follow the self-education terrain. All I hope for is that we are able to do well , to instill in them that passion to find out things and try to answer  all those questions that pop up as they get in contact with knowledge.
Instill in them that agility to have them notice,doubt and look for reason, and make things look more logical, to have them draw upon their imagination to enable them understand nature as it is.
Nature has a vast imagination, and its magnificence is like no other.... It makes sense right, to organize " budding minds meeting"... have us the opportunity to learn with these young ones.. see from their point of view and let them into ours...me seeing their mind and them seeing my mind, such exchange can only lead to an expansion of  perspective views.

Will be discussing the whole thing with Salifu, so we can see what we can do, the main constraint will be sourcing funds, but if for location, I think the hill will be a perfect place to have the meeting.. great! ... the thought just hit me. Yeah, with the wonderful view , we can cause these people to think and imagine and help us do the same.
Wonderful idea, if not the hill a classroom will do, we will find a venue .
Thats all for now, will do more journaling soon..ahahahhaha..its fun I love what I am doing.
We keep telling ourselves Ghana needs us, and we need to meet the  task, following our passion and helping others do the same.

THE DREAM

My thoughts are not clouded.
In fact , I am all cool.
I am just thinking what can I do for my world.
What can I do to my world;to cause a positive change in it.
I wish my world was a place where generations will love to live and dream about everyday
I want to fly, so that generations after me will soar

I want to fly, so that generations after me will soar.
I look at my kid brother Joseph and say to myself , what kind of foundation am I building for my child's child.
Lead my imagination and cause my realism to come to be , Infinite Intelligence.

I want to fly , so that generations after me will soar
People are loosing hope bcos we have no dream to hold on to as a country.
Have we ever asked ourselves where we are going as a country, what is our dream as a country.
This country needs a dream, a dream that will speak to us in our sleep and guide us in our wake.

I want to fly, so that generation after me will soar
What is the dream of Ghana, what is the dream of Africa.
What is our dream as a people?
Maybe if we are able to identify that dream ,we can work in and out of each others dream to make this country's dream come to be.

I want to fly , so that generations after me will soar
It will be all good ,if we all had dreams individually bcos before anything will do well or strife to survive.
It needs something to hold on to ; it needs a dream, so this country needs a dream to survive.
This is the way forward.

I want to fly, so that generations after me will soar
This is the only way we can shape our country into our magnificent desire;by shaping the lives of the individuals in this country with a dream.
Wonder why the USA is doing so well, ask anyone and they will tell you about the American dream.
We dont need the american dream, we need our dream, shaped from our own visions and desires.
We need our dream shaped from our individual dreams and formed into that magnificent obsession, we wish to come to.
We need a dream that will teach our country men to dream better and to achieve greater.

I want to fly , so that generations after me will soar.
We will survive as dreamers, bcos dreamers always see farther and further and cause things to happen in a world far unknown and then make that world their world, their reality.

I want to fly so that generations after me will soar.
It is said that the ancestor of every action is a thought---is a dream.
We must first dream this country before we can build it .
So now the question;
What is the dream of this country?
Its simple but deep, its to you all.

VISION

Have a dream in sight my brothers
For it takes a vision to accomplish anything
I have seen them all gone through it
We want change so bad and yet what efforts are we making to call it to pass
May be when we understand it will take more than punching ourselves in our everyday speeches; telling ourselves we cant.
Maybe when we understand we can..
And what we have to do is to fess up to the realism of our in depth ignorance due to our laziness.
That the only way we can do more is to be more.
So we wake up each day from our beds with a goal to make the most of ourselves 
/////
Maybe we need more than just work, to do well
We need to change our perceptions about ourselves
I believe we have knowledge in many areas.
I have met with both very intelligent and dumb if I should use such to define their depth of ignorance with times..
But what its stunning is both know something.
We all know something 'cos if we knew nothing all, then we will cease to exist.
What we dont know at all is us.
How much do you know about yourself, I believe most people have not taken time to study themselves and how they function.
They know how to walk,talk and even how to lift a stone, but they dont know what is they are doing every time they are doing it
We seem to how we do what it is we do but we dont know what is we are doing.
Your brain ..what is the weight of your of brain....9 pounds hmmm
How does it function ....what happens every time you put it to work.
There is more to say.
But there is no way we can know more if we are not willing to learn.
Plato once said when every child is born into this world his mind is wiped 
clean as a slate and he inscripts upon it as he wills.
All you will ever know will be from what you know, even your imagination is built on by your knowledge.
Your knowledge determines the extent of your imagination.
Therefore we need to read all we can, we need to know all we can if ever want to accomplish all we want. We need to be more in order to have more.
Its a basic principle of the universe ,like attracts like.

Reading

I am here again and these same thoughts keep running through mind .
The thoughts that hit me every time I walk the streets, and see the children who have to hustle to feed themselves. 
My heart and my mind barely make sense of why these children are not in school
Not being in school is Ok, because I know a number of very inspiring individuals who never went to school, and a also a number of very inspiring individuals who didn’t gain their utmost knowledge and experience from schools.
There is no space for names in this writing , what I wish to proceed to say is the power of self-education and why it is necessary we employ the youth and every individual alike to read .
There are many stories of how people left the classroom and read their way to fortunes. The many successes people have found out of the classroom sends one message, the people who succeeded went on a journey of self-exploration.
I remember recently something I read from one article and Bill Gates recounts that  he is successful today because when he was young he had the opportunity to read a whole lot ,and many other successful people also say the same; the stuffs that really worked for them are the stuffs they took time to learn on their own; explore by themselves.
The self-learning spirit has driven many to fame and fortune, and one reason for this is because there… you are free to learn what  you want ;all you want , and if you are ambitious enough you can explore a world that is unknown to the world.
The day I realized the power in  self-education, I wish I had taken that course way before now and I wish I had someone to instill that reading spirit into  me and that is what I wish to do now for my fellow brothers and sisters.
These lines simmer through my thoughts now;
I wish I knew
That knowledge breathes unlimited power
I wish I knew
That the quest of a lifetime would be to follow every question that popped up in my head
I wish I knew
That sights unseen far away in distant lands could be brought to my swet senses of vision and imagination
I wish I knew
That I could follow my every curious thought, answer every question and discover secrets that are known only to the elite .
I wish I knew
That the extent of imagination could be broadened and that I could read the minds of every great person who ever lived and possess knowledge that went farther than my superficial understanding.
I wish I knew
That all  I am going through now and all that I will ever want, people had been through it and still have a voice that shares their experiences; their successes and failures.
I never knew
Books could bring the worlds far and near to a juncture
I never knew
Books could bring the voices of people from distant lands to my hearing                    
 I never knew
There is a whole lot about this world that I couldn’t afford to learn through my own experience in this gasp of life but could learn whole lot of it through books.
I will sit no more, to ponder over wonders I can hardly understand.
I will sit with my mind open to every iota of question that creeps up in my head.
I realized there is a whole lot I need to learn to make my life whole and to understand life itself.
Sometimes I wonder how much do I even know about me, why do I have nails, why do I have five fingers and blah blah blah. There are so many whys about me it will take ages for me to find out all the answers I need and the answers I get to know will lead to more questions which will in turn lead to endless discovering.
But why stay still and not read when I can find out and fill my head with so many answers it will thrill me and the world at large.
I believe there is a ladder that shoots up from within us that enables us to climb higher heights when we read.
All who have had the opportunity to read their way out of their ignorance, I know will share my opinion.
There is a lot we can achieve for ourselves, for this country and the world if only we will pursue knowledge.
Pursuing knowledge is a one street to unraveling our potentials and discovering our in-depth capabilities.
Reading speaks the message readily.