Who Do You Need to Learn? Yourself

Students:  Who do you need to learn?  The answer is:  NO ONE!  Once you can read at a certain level, you don't need teachers any more.  But then, why do so many students believe they need a teacher?  Why do students even go to school?  Because schools have created the vice of dependency in students.  If students were scholars, we wouldn't have schools.

So, what is a scholar?  A scholar is simply an independent learner.  A scholar learns whether she is at school or not.  A scholar has broken the chains of dependency on teachers and schools that most students have.  A scholar still has his curiosity intact.  Or he has regained it, somehow.  Pulled curiosity back from the deep dark recesses of their toddler's brain.  And when they regain the curiosity they once had as a child a palpable joy attends their thoughts, as if a long lost  best friend has returned. 

A scholar is like the colonists who were angry at England for all the taxes and unfair rules it placed on them.  They broke free and claimed independence.  Hopefully, you will all come to the point in your life when you will break free from dependency on teachers and school to learn.  You will want to go to school, then, because as a scholar you will crave what school is offering, and you will naturally go above the knowledge that school is offering because it is not enough.  You need school to give you a paper that verifies you were able to jump certain hurdles.  But that paper, your diploma, is not an indicator that the holder of it is a scholar.  No, a scholar can only be proven by what she does.  She constantly searches for truth, wisdom, knowledge, and skills.  He is never satisfied.  He realizes as he learns more and more that he knows less and less and he is amazed by this and excited that his journey will never end.  Only the few, the lucky, the persistent, the determined will ever reach the high place that scholars inhabit.  In fact, many if not most college students have not reached the mountain peak that scholars inhabit.  It is a title for the humble few who never advertise their greatness but know deep inside how great their attainment is.

What is the sign of a scholar?  Simple:  A scholar thinks listens and speaks and reads and writes.  A scholar is just as happy in a prison cell as a library, as it affords him as much time as he needs to think.  He listens to all he can, for he might hear something that is true.  He speaks in questions hoping someone knows the answers.  He reads with the hunger of the starving man, for the effort of writing winnows the field down to those whose knowledge has motivated them to write.  And finally, he writes to share his own knowledge with those other scholars who seek