Learn to do Something Fun in your Spare Time
By: Keith
You’ve heard of the personal enrichment classes offered at your community college, usually in the evenings. The classes are filled with stay at home moms and retirees who dream of spicing up or changing the direction of their perceived unfulfilled lives. They think ”Maybe I’m a dormant genius!” The example that always comes to my mind when I think of personal enrichment classes is “The night was humid.” from Throw Mama From the Train. Danny DeVito’s character, Owen, wants to be a writer so he signs up for the personal enrichment class where Billy Crystal’s character, Larry, is the creative writing instructor. Larry’s life, though, is a mess. His own attempts to write are stuck in neutral as he can’t produce even the opening sentence of the novel he’s been agonizing over since his wife left him. Eventually he settles on “The night was humid.” Satisfied by at least getting started, he goes to class the next day only to find his protégé, Owen, started his creative writing submission, “The night was humid.”!
That’s how I think of personal enrichment classes. They’re fun because you get to sit in a classroom, and that makes you feel like perhaps you’re actually learning something. And you might be! But, you won’t learn anything more from a class like that than you would by studying on your own time. Personal enrichment classes at the community college are amusing pastimes, but you aren’t really going to learn, for example, how to write. We all know the only way to learn is by doing, and the main function of a teacher is to guide education, not to implant it into your head. In the movie, though, everything turns out great, Larry and Owen become successful and everybody’s happy. Wait! That’s not the point!
The point is this: you want some personal enrichment, but you don’t want to sign up for a dumb class where you’ll be taught to hatch a murder plot (er something). We all want to be better at certain (specific and personal) things. Maybe you’re like Larry and you want to write a book but you can’t get started. Well, you don’t need a class to do it, you need time and you need motivation. Most skills in life do not require formal classes. For instance, these are some of the skills I constantly work at for enjoyment and personal enrichment:
Juggling: There are a ton of videos and resources on-line. It’s easy to get started, and it’s rewarding to be able to say you can do it.
Guitar: I suppose you could take lessons, but why bother when all you need are a few books and an instrument? I taught myself to play 12 years ago. I’m not great, and it would be nice to have someone to play with, but the fact is that to get started you don’t need to allocate time and money to formal lessons.
Vocabulary: Everybody wants a bigger vocabulary. There are iPhone apps for that and flashcards. All it takes is a few minutes a day.
Read: Reading is the first step to writing. If you don’t read, you can’t write. Everybody, then, should set time aside to read a good book.
Write: The more you write the better at it you become. Improving your grammar doesn’t require a classroom. Buy The Elements of Style for starters. Then sit down and start producing. It won’t take long for your confidence to catch up with your ambition.
Learn a Language: You could take a class or you could buy a Rosetta Stone program. Languages aren’t that hard (okay, Chinese is hard) when you open your mind and just let it happen. An hour a day will make you proficient at most European languages in 6 month’s time.
Archery: I took up archery when I lived in Minnesota. It’s one of the most satisfying and Zen type experiences I have. All it took was 200 bucks to buy a bow and a place to practice.
The point is clear. Start doing what you’ve always wanted to do. Allocate just a portion of your day for personal enrichment, and you’ll find that learning doesn’t require big commitments, just a series of small ones. The skills I listed above are the ones to which I’ve chosen to devote, beyond my normal fatherly duties, myself. Everybody has their own ambitions. Don’t start thinking you need to be like Owen and take a class to learn writing. Community college classes aren’t bad by any means. But, lacking the time, you can always do it on your own.
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Sometimes people want to be part of a group. (although I don’t know why) I’ve always wanted to make a quilt and bought a bunch of books including Quilting For Dummies but something is missing in the explanation or in me. In this case, to see it done in a class or with a bunch of old quilters would help me. Actually if I had a spot that my four-legged family wouldn’t jump all over I’d give it a go and give my first messed up piece to you.
According to my wife, I could easily teach a class called “Being Sarcastic.” I’m not sure she was being complimentary, though.
Wow! Felt like you were talking to me specifically in this one, Keith. I’ve got a few things I’ve wanted to get started on, and I think this post is the jolt I needed. Thanks!
.-= Brian´s last blog ..Holy moly =-.
I have been reading your blogs for some time and tend to agree with your views more often than not.
On this one I don’t. I used to go to those classes and enjoyed the social aspect of them. Especially learning languages is good fun in a group environment as compared to cramming vocabulary and grammar at home in more or less complete isolation.English is my second language and I doubt it very much that any average guy can get beyond the beginner stage by studying an hour a day for half a year.
Jorg: Learning a language in your own time at home is entirely possible and not really that hard. I’m proof of that. I didn’t say those classes are useless or stupid. I said they weren’t necessary to education, that if you really want something you don’t need it. That’s all. I wasn’t slamming classroom study. I just said they aren’t necessary. All those things on the list, I’ve done without formal classes.
For me learning to cook was something I did in my spare time, plus to get girls. The next thing I’d like to learn more about is photography. When things get a little less crazy here I’m going to take a 101 class at the local community college. They have some great programs for all kinds of adult learning.
.-= PJ Mullen´s last blog ..Life as a status symbol =-.
PJ: I so totally want to learn how to cook. Knowing me though, I’ll get it all figured out by the time I have grandkids!
Perhaps I ‘worked myself up’ on your view that learning a language for 180h gets you up to the level of “proficiency”. I still think is unachievable considering that one has to memorize thousands of new words, never mind word combinations, shades of meaning and grammar. Keith, you seem to write for a living, and I’m sure you know how complex languages are on closer examination. With only 180h you’ll archive a basic grasp of the chosen language and no more. I am also talking from experience, being a native speaker in German who has been struggling with English and Japanese for many years, if not decades. As a full time student I was just about able to add about 20 new words a day to my English vocabulary and around 12 to Japanese (including character). You do the math
Rereading your blog entry (while politely skipping your paragraph on foreign languages), I agree it’s not a bad idea to just start with whatever you want to learn and get on with it rather than hanging around in class doodling on your notepad. However, unless you are unusually gifted, it won’t get you far in ‘most’ areas of interest despite having more and more information available on the internet. If studying was that easy we could do away with university lectures and schooling in general. It’s all in the text books or on the net, or is it?
BTW: your blog is a good read… wish I could write like that. I suppose I should follow your advice and sit down and write more often. Practice practice practice…..
Jorg: Japanese is not a European language and, thus, takes much more time (although speaking it is not a difficult proposition, writing the Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana certainly is) for us to learn. I became almost fluent in Spanish in 6 month’s time (and proficiency is much less than fluency). I’m absolutely certain I could do it with any other European language excluding perhaps Finnish and Hungarian. There are many skills that do not require a university to learn. Now, of course engineering and philosophy and such require a more rigid education. But, to just have fun and get reasonably good at something? No way is a University necessary. I think we’ll have to respectfully disagree on that issue. I don’t see languages as particularly complicated affairs, at least not some of the ones that you and I already have some foundation in (As European languages are generally either germanic or romance) by birth.
Yes, most European languages are by comparison easy and I’m also with you on spoken Japanese. The grammar/syntax is actually easier than its English counterpart. The hardest part for me is the cultural difference. I do get from time to time disapproving responses despite perfect grammar and good pronunciation. The way I said it is just not ‘the Japanese way’. Perhaps too confrontational, too direct or even too girlish (my ex-girl practised with me). Occident meets orient. I suppose there is more to language than words and grammar.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for self study and have been doing just that throughout my adult life. I only raised my eyebrow when I read how easy it is to archive proficiency level by just applying a bit of ‘fun learning’. But as you said in your last post: we have to disagree on that and leave the issue.
Jorg: Thanks for reading, and thank you for the debate! I’ve just started (last week) studying German. Come by in 6 months and test me
There’s a good chance I’ll flake out, but right now I have total confidence. Now you’ve motivated me! HAHA
Great Post!! My thoughts exactly. Reminded me of a great book called “the slight edge.”
Great post, learning languages is easy for me, but cooking that is a challenge.