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What is an autodidact?
never give up...the return of my self education blog
Date: 3/31/2006 11:23:11 AM ( 18 y ) ... viewed 3428 times http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidact
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Autodidacticism
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Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact, also known as an automath, is a mostly self-taught person - typically someone who has an enthusiasm for self-education and a high degree of self-motivation. Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan and Newton's contemporary Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz were largely self-taught in mathematics. Occasionally, individuals have sought to excel in subjects outside the mainstream of conventional education. Jean Paul Sartre's Nausea depicts an autodidact who is a self-deluding dilettante. Other autodidacts have excelled within, and brought innovative perspectives to, their more mainstream disciplines. For example, physicist and Judo expert Moshe Feldenkrais developed an autodidactic method of self-improvement based on his own experience with self-directed learning in physiology and neurology. His was motivated by his own, crippling knee injury. In addition to Feldenkrais, Gerda Alexander, William Bates, Heinrich Jacoby and a number of other 20th-century European innovators worked out methods of self-development which stressed intelligent sensitivity and awareness.
A person may become an autodidact at nearly any point in his or her life. While some may have been educated in a conventional manner in a particular field, they may choose to educate themselves in other, often unrelated areas. It should be noted that self-teaching and self-directed learning are not necessarily lonely processes. Some autodidacts spend a great deal of time in libraries or on educative Web sites. Many, according to their plan for learning, avail themselves of instruction from family members, friends, or other associates (although strictly speaking this might not be considered autodidactic). Indeed, the term 'self-taught' is something of a journalistic trope these days, and is all too often used to signify 'non-traditionally educated', which is entirely different.
Inquiry into autodidacticism has implications for learning theory, educational research, educational philosophy, and educational psychology.
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