Then next generation of humanity always seems to manage the world around them, but without the teachers throughout their lives, they would have a much more difficult time navigating the labyrinth of life. However, teachers take many forms and are not always labeled as teachers. Even the individual is a teacher to themselves. There are also many teaching methods that work best for each individual. Some need to learn hands-on, some need a demonstration, and some need a verbal aid. For a certain famous poet, Walt Whitman, self-education worked best. Due to his circumstances he was unable to be formally educated, but he managed to teach himself and while he was not very popular at first, he later became one of the most influential poets in America. However, he found that it mattered little that he wasn't able to attend school since he preferred a hands-on method of learning. Whitman believed in the power of the individual having their own experiences; questioning, searching, and discovering. To accomplish …show more content…
Through his own personal experience, Whitman discovers that one of the best methods of teaching is hands-on work. In his text When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer he explains the difference between listening to a lecture and observing contrast. "When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room,/ How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, ... / In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,/ Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars." People who have studied the methods that Whitman preferred to use have noticed his emphasis on self education, "Each student must develop sound, still image montage, and moving image projects that embrace the qualities of scholarly ‘remix, distributed and networked authorship, and the realignment of objects and investigators in research'"