Things I learned from people with no education.

Photo by Luis Vaz on Unsplash

Since I am on the topic of education (you can check my previous blog posts here : Is going to college important? and If you want to study and you don't have money, DO THIS!), I decided to share with you guys in this blog post what I learned from people with no education so far. I am literally amazed how much it is.

I still think that education is very important and if you can go to a college, take a course or attend an online program, you should definitely do it! However, I also think that we can learn a lot from people who have no education at all! I work with people who live in extreme poverty, some of them never went to school, don't know how to read or write, have a “poor” vocabulary, don't know how to express theirs thoughts... and today, I am still fascinated by how much I actually have been learning from them. Three years ago, when I first started working for the NGO I am currently working for, I could not have imagined at all that this would be such a life-changing experience in terms of personal growth and seeing the world and people from a whole new perspective.

In our society, we have a tendency to think that only people with education, only successful people, those who have great careers, who earn a lot of money, who have their own business are the ones who can teach us something. And they definitely do teach us a lot of things! However, we kind of neglect all the other people – those who are “normal” or who did not achieve anything “spectacular” in their life. Many people think that we can not learn anything from them, that they are not intelligent enough, educated enough or good enough to give us some knowledge. It is really terrible to see how even some people are often rude to those who they think are less of people because of some external signs like clothing or way of speaking. People can be mean to someone only because he/she has an accent! In this world where becoming rich, famous, beautiful, having many followers is an obsession, success is very much measured by numbers, looks, fake drama scandals and price tags.

It is incredible how the society makes us think that only certain things should be praised and be taken as signs of success and knowledge, and all the rest is trash. In my work I see very often this “relationship of domination” between an educated person or even just a person with a decent job, and someone who lives in poverty and doesn't know how to read, for example. I always get angry when I see people who talk to poor and non educated folks like they can not understand them because they are not “on the same level” - they will use simpler words, they will do things for them because they think they are not capable of doing them by themselves... The funny part is that these people are actually believing that they are doing something good... If you think of it, this is really disrespectful. It is disrespectful because they put themselves in a position of power and domination and they actually pity the other person. They don't help them. This way they actually don't let the other person show his/her own skills and capabilities and develop his/her potential.

But what if we put ourselves “on the same level” and take people as they are? What if we are curious to learn about them and their life? What if we actually accept the “foolish” idea that they can teach us something? What if what they just said and has no sens to us, has so much to them? Why? Maybe because there is something we can not understand. Maybe it is because they experienced something we did not and they learned something we did not. Maybe because in those people we will not see the success in terms of money and building successful careers, but in terms of overcoming terrible situations in their life, dealing with personal issues, social exclusion, prejudice, loneliness, losing everything... and still being here on this world trying to make the best they can of their life.

Now, I am very excited to share with you the lessons that I personally got from people with no education!

There are different types of intelligence.

“Those who are good in maths, physics, chemistry... all kinds of science, maybe literature (hum, actually, I am not really sure) are always very smart and intelligent”. Does it sound familiar to you? I have been listening to this my whole life. “If you are good in maths, you are definitely a highly intelligent person”, but if you suck at it, probably you are doing something wrong... or you are just not so smart and you have to accept it.

The truth is that there are different types of intelligence. According to Howard Gardner in “Frames of Mind : The Theory of Multiple Intelligences” there are spatial, naturalist, musical, logical (where the maths find their place), intra-personal, interpersonal, linguistic, existential and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. I would also add emotional intelligence as well. We all have some of these types of intelligences more developed than others and this remains true for every human being, no exception. So, this means that actually the person who sucks at maths, but is great in football can also be defined like a highly intelligent person (in reality, they rarely are).

It is the same with people with no education. The fact that someone does not have a degree does not mean that they are not better than you and I in other areas of their life like making music or creating cooking recipes, having sustainable relationships, knowing the nature, repairing cars and other vehicles... If one day my fridge stops working, I know that my law degree would not help me a lot to repair it, but the guy next door who went to school until the age of 16 – he knows what to do!

Even if you have a degree, you still have to learn things about life.

One of the biggest problems of our modern education system is that we don't learn enough about life. Some of us go out of college with zero understanding about how to deal with real life issues like losing everything, finding inner strength and overcoming personal issues, starting over from scratches, fighting for your rights, being victim of social exclusion, prejudice and racism, being bullied... We don't learn about all these things at school, although we should do. These are real life question that are so extremely important in order to understand life and the world and unfortunately, we have to find the answers by ourselves.

Often people who don't have education, live in poverty or had a difficult childhood / personal story, are being or have been victims of violence, have to deal with all these problems by themselves. They have managed to find inner strength and to continue fighting, moving forward, living. If I was at their place, I don't know if I would have this strength. I know people who say “Oh, I would have definitely found a way out!”. It is easy for a person who has a pretty good life to say it. They are in a position that allows them to think this way. If tomorrow they become homeless, maybe the first thing they will think of is suicide. You never know what you would do in a certain situation, until this is your true reality. Everything before that are just presumptions and hypotheses.

You can have a degree and still be irresponsible and immature.

I don't even want to think about all these immature and irresponsible classmates that I had in college. They would spend all theirs parents' money for parties and alcohol, they would not be able to make even one serious decision about their life and I am not even talking about finding a job.

People with no education very often start working at early age. I know some people who started at the age of 14. This was a way for them to help financially (even though it was maybe illegal?) theirs parents who were struggling. I also see in big families of 5, 6 and even more children how sometimes the bigger ones (12-14 years old) are already taking care of theirs little brothers and sisters, cooking for them, picking them up from school, helping them with their homework, cleaning the house... they are like “little parents” already. This is also one of the reasons why some poor children don't do very well at school – they have other preoccupations at home than doing homework. When I was a kid, my only preoccupation was my homework and having good grades. That's it. When I was done, I could go enjoy my life with my friends. We all have different life experiences that teach us different lessons. When you start having big responsibilities early in your life, you grow faster than the majority of kids at your age.

You can be very well educated and this does not mean that you are better than those who are not.

Many people who have a degree, a good job, a successful business tend to think that they are “better” than the other people. This may be not a completely conscious thought, but you can notice it by the way they talk and act with the others. Mostly, this is because they have the feeling that they have achieved something big in their life, which is true, but again – this just one type of success. Other kind of success could be trying to be a good parent and creating a real relationship with your kids when they are in a foster family, for example.

Here we have again relationships of domination and power where one is the dominant and the other is the dominate. Throughout the years, society has established certain signs of success making us forget or not even realize that success is a very relative thing and everybody has theirs big and small achievements. People who think they are better than others because of their education or profession are not successful to me. They are just seeking people's attention and validation.

People with no education are not stupid!

Another very popular prejudice is that people with no education are stupid – they don't know how to read or write, how to talk well and be presentable, how to act in a way conform with the social norms (sometimes they talk too laud, they say things “they don't have to say”, don't have good manners etc.). Even if all these examples are maybe true sometimes, they can not be a sign of a person's level of intelligence. Maybe some people don't know how to read and this is troubling for them in many life situations, but this is not something that definitely means that they are stupid. They can certainly manifest their intelligence in other areas of life – maybe they draw or sing very well, maybe they are great cooks, maybe they can build something that you and I can not. Society does not refer these skills as intelligence, but they are a sign of intelligence. Nowadays we have people who built successful businesses because they were awesome dancers, football players, chefs, fitness instructors... Not only people with a degree in science are smart! Everybody is. We just have to find what we are good at and develop it.

People with no education can be very creative and practical.

I am always fascinated by the people I work with and how they find alternative ways to get something they want. For example, if a gym membership is too expensive for them, they will go out at a park near their home or even on the street, they will meet up with some mates and will start doing pushups or playing basketball / football together. If they see some bars nearby, they will invent a whole bunch of series of exercises for the upper body. You can read my blog post on weight training here : What did working out teach me about life?

Another thing which I find very funny is that often, people with education will always look for the most complicated solution of their issue, when a person with no education in the same situation will go for the most obvious solution which is sometimes the best one. Often people like making things complicated when they actually are not at all. Sometimes the simplest choice is the best one.

People are too complicated creatures to be "put in a box".

We are all very complicated. We have different desires, personal issues, fears, beliefs, dreams. We can not put one person in a box with a disclaimer “smart”, “stupid”, “successful”. One person can be very smart in some areas of his/her life and very silly in others. One person can be very intelligent when it comes to science and very silly when it comes to personal relationships. I know that creativity and doing manual activities is not my strength and I accept it. I know that I have others. Every time when I have to work with creators, I admire them and their work, I try to help them, but this is it. This is not my cup of tea. I know people who live in poverty and never went to school, but are very manual and can create amazing things only by using plastic bottles, for example! This is amazing! Personally, I would never think of making toys from plastic bottles, but it is possible! And they are not even ugly! Creativity has many forms – some people will use it to write novels, others to DIY things.

Sometimes people's degree is tightly connected to their ego.

Doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists... many people do theirs studies more for the title and the opportunity for a good pay check than because this is their real passion. They are guided by their ego and not really by their true desires. I used to be this person who was driven by my ego issues during my years at Law school. I wanted to graduate because of the title, because people will think that I was successful, because I could afford buying expensive things and show them to people... This was not a conscious process in my head. I realize it now when I am doing something completely different. At that time, I was thinking that I was living my dream, even if somewhere deep inside I knew that this was not true. I was not the only one fooling myself. I think that from all the students at my school maybe there were 15 people from 200 who really wanted to become lawyers because this was their thing. What about the others?

People have expectations towards us. Society has expectations towards us. Today, people live under the constant pressure of everyone – family, friends, people on social media. We all want to fit in, but by fitting in, we lose our true selves. We forget who we really want to be. Who did you want to be as a child? Maybe this answer will guide you to who you want to be now.

Not everybody has the same life opportunities.

Working with people who live in poverty taught me that not everybody has the same opportunities to grow and evolve in life. I know that I have a very supportive family who was always next to me in every moment, good and bad, of my life. They were with me when I dropped off of Law school and supported me when I decided to start working with people living in extreme poverty. They also were always willing to help me financially if I needed it. When I was at college, I was not realizing that this was a chance in life that not everybody had.

Not everybody has a supportive family, financial security, a backup plan, something to rely on if everything goes wrong. Only knowing that you have these things in life, even if you don't use them (like I have never asked my parents to pay my rent during my studies, for example), but just knowing that in the worst case scenario, you can rely on them, is a big security and stability. It allows you to make many more changes in your life that you would probably do if you didn't have all these life opportunities.

When you live in poverty, when you have to help financially your family, when you are 10 and you live in a small apartment with only one bedroom, education and getting a degree is not your first and most important preoccupation. Also, you don't have the conditions to focus on learning, reading and studying. If this was my every-day reality, maybe I would have never made it to college. People who don't have a secure environment to rely on have to move, to do something – work, earn money, pay bills... they don't have time to lose. This could also be very motivational though. When you don't have a backup plan, you are all in in what you are doing. It is very scary, but it could also be a great opportunity for growth.

It is never too late to start learning.

We learn new things every single day during our whole lifetime. It is never too late to start learning, to go to a college, to change your career, to start traveling... I know people who decided to go back to college at the age of 70! To start learning a new language at the age of 80. This is freaking awesome! If you want to do something, you have to do it. Sometimes we need time, we need courage, we need patience. Sometimes we even need to feel completely miserable and depressed to push ourselves to do something we have never done before. When I first started traveling by myself, I was in a very dark place in my life and this was my salvation. I needed to do something that will make me feel strong and alive again. I was thinking about it for a long time and when I felt that the time was right, I did it and it was one of the most life-changing experiences in my life. You can read my story here : Why is solo traveling your path to self-discovery?

It is never too late to start something new, to change your life, to do what you really want to do. Only because now you are not living your dream life, it does not mean that you will never do. But you have to start thinking about it today. After all, time is precious and it flies!

People with no education taught me empathy, compassion and respect.

In this world of big competition and huge social pressure we need to remember that we are all the same in many ways. We all have good and bad days, personal struggles and wounds to heal, fears, ego, dreams, expectations. Some people are born more fortunate than others. That does not mean that they don't have any problems at all. They do have problems, but maybe different. And it is difficult for them as well. We all need help, love, kindness, understanding, a friend, someone to trust. We all need guidance and support at some point or another in our life. We all deserve to be heard, loved and respected.

It is easy to feel this kind of emotions for people who are like you, who are a part of your social circle, with whom you find obvious reasons to hang out, to talk to and to take their advice. The people who are different than us, however, could maybe teach us even more about life. They give us a different perspective, they make us see one problem from a different angle, they will show us that sometimes life can be very very challenging for some people and they don't always make the right decisions. They also feel lost, but in different matters. They also feel misunderstood, but in a different way and in different circumstances. They know the best how it feels to be a social outsider. And if they still keep going, working, trying to be good parents and friends, looking for happiness like everybody else, I think that this is maybe the biggest success of all.

When the world falls apart, when you have to do all by yourself, when the society rejects you everyday, when people look at you like you have no worth, but you still find a way to see the good and the beauty of this life, I can not feel anything else but respect, compassion and empathy. We are all more similar than we think we are. We just need to be curious enough to find out the similarities, to learn from each other. Education or no education, our character is what tells the world who we truly are. Love, Elena

You can also check :
Is going to college important?
If you want to study and you don't have money, DO THIS!