I have read several books about Albert Einstein. He was such an interesting character. It seemed that much of my early life was similar to his. I know he had problems with his primary education. He simply got bored with it. He called it a rigid atmosphere where thinking for yourself as strictly forbidden. At the age of 15, he decided to educate himself.

I can remember my primary years of education (grades 1 – 8). I was taught by Franciscan nuns who relied primarily on rote memorization. Since I was pretty proficient in reading before grade one, trying to memorize all the rules was agonizing. I flunked the second grade due to scarlet fever and not being willing to do the rote exercises. I guess you could say that I decided to educate myself at the age of 7.

There were some classes in high school, such as algebra and Latin, that I enjoyed, but it was not until I went to college that I felt challenged by what I was being taught. What I essentially learned in college was how to think and learn. The particular topics/classes were not that important in my career as an electrical engineer and, later as an IT guy. Even back in the 1970s, things were changing too fast for any particular knowledge to be useful for very long.

Throughout my 30-year corporate career, I taught myself what I needed to know to thrive at what I was doing. Except for a stifling FORTRAN class in college, all of my computer programming skills were self-taught. Of course, a strong reason for that was my deafness, followed closely by Autism, and finally the lack of accommodations to learn it otherwise.

I don’t really know just how formal education can become more pertinent to the workplace, but the way it is taught now is, as Einstein said, is a killer to creativity.

It is only those who

Think For Themselves, Question Everything, and Never Stop Learning

that creativity can thrive.