In my experience, when a writer talks about “education,” they usually refer to formal education. However, I find it difficult to talk about formal education without talking about the informal influences. I also believe it is important to reveal my educational background in order for the reader to know “where I’m coming from.” I often read articles about education and I wonder if the author’s background is similar to mine or if it is a very different perspective. I believe that the source of perspective is almost as important as the actual perspective.

In a response to this, I am going to tell my own educational history. Some of it is mythical; that is, it is the stories that my family told of me. I have no proof of these claims but I feel it is important to “put it out there” as to establish my egoist state of mind as a young student. This informal history will be followed with my perceptions as a student and this will be followed by some concrete facts such as GPAs and SAT results. By the end, I hope the reader understands my perspectives by knowing my experiences. In that way, the reader should better know the sources of my perspectives and, thereby, understand my flaws and unique views.

Some the legends of my youth are as follows;

• An extreme delay in walking and talking as a baby led my parents and my doctor to believe that I was retarded. An intelligence test proved that I had above average intelligence.

• My parents provided me with some self-teaching devices as a little boy. This led me to start school with a 5th grade reading level.

• My mother and her best friend communicated in front of me , as a toddler, by spelling out words when I wasn’t supposed to understand their gossiping. It was reported that I figured out these words.

• As a first grader, I remember feeling frustrated by my education, particularly telling time. At some point in my primary school years, the school wanted to advance me a grade. My parents apparently refused because of their worry of being socially intimidated.

• In 6th grade, we were reading a passage together. Inside my book I had the latest issue of Sports Illustrated. I was able to follow both texts at the same time. (This one I distinctly remember doing.)

• In 5th grade, I would often fail to be listening when the teacher gave math assignments. As a response, I would do far more problems than the teacher asked. I often read ahead sections in the book to anticipate the next day’s assignment. If interested, I often would do this with other grades, all the way through high school.

• By the time I got to junior high school, I really didn’t care that much. I would get good grades in Band and Math but gave just enough effort to pass in other subjects. I occasionally made honor roll but only after my parents offered a cash incentive.

• When I was about 9 years old, I got interested on the stats on the back of baseball cards. Over the next few months (summertime), I taught myself to calculate batting averages and earned run averages. (This was before calculators were very available so this was long division and multiplication.)

In my later years of high school and college, I remember some more definite numbers and events;

• I remember taking the Armed Forces Test and graded in some really high percentiles. As a result, I was always getting things in the mail recruiting me to different branches of the Armed Forces.

• I remember getting a recruitment letter from a college in New England that did nothing but mathematics. I also received an offer to attend the University of Virginia on a ROTC scholarship. (I was never in high school JROTC.)

• I took the Pre-SAT in high school. My math was in the 53rd percentile and my reading was in the 47th percentile. I never took the real SAT or ACT or the GRE.

• I graduated from high school with a 2.4 GPA. After a year of community college, my GPA was 0.25. I returned 15 years later and raised it to a 3.2 GPA. I transferred to major university and graduated with a 2.6 GPA. 12 years after that, I received a Masters’ Degree with 3.8 GPA and I have finished my PhD with a 3.5 GPA.

After these long lines of experiences, I have learned most of my education on my own. This is not to say that I have not experienced some masterful teachers because I have. Fortunately, I have found ways to get credit for all the things that I learned. As a result, I feel very impressed and connected to people who have basically educated themselves, like Ken Wilber, Joseph Campbell and many others.