Intelligent Self-direction

“Intelligent self-direction,” to me, is all about self-reliance. With self reliance as a leading role for a student, you don’t need your teachers to tell you what to do every step of the way. I believe we eventually come to a point in our lives when we have to break free from “the norm.” The norm is when your teacher reminds you that your report is due tomorrow, or even assigns you a topic to do your report on.

Self-direction doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with being a good student. In fact, in order to have any self-reliance at all, you cannot be a good student. Good students tend to follow the teacher too much. In order to be independent, you can’t wait for a teacher to tell you what to do. Of course it is the role of the teacher to give support, but part of the support includes urging and encouraging students to find the way on their own. Every student should have their own “vision quest.”

W.L. Garner said college students are “self-centered, restless, striving…etc,” and I totally agree with him. However, I think these characteristics bring out the best in us. One reason we act like this is because we want to be individuals, independent, and self educated. Being self-centered simply means we like to do things our own way. Being “selfish” like this can be a good thing because we can really produce some great ideas. If people would let us, we can be extremely creative.

Despite our self-direction, we always have to be intelligent about out self reliance, freedom is nice, but it comes with restraints and responsibility