One thing I have found out is that how smart or how educated a person is has nothing to do with how many years he spent in school. I have seen plenty of people who graduated from college who don't have the sense God gave a turkey - in other words, they were educated beyond their intelligence - and plenty who stopped even before they graduated from high school who have done an excellent job of educating themselves.

I suppose the necessary quality would be motivation. I'm not sure how anybody would make it through four years of college and still be as, . . .um, unknowing as the day they entered. Or twelve years of high school for that matter. We provide twelve free years of education, or I should say thirteen since kindergarten is now included in most states. I guess we'll always have someone blaming the teachers if a child comes out not knowing how to read.

Let me get off my soapbox and continue with the purpose of this piece, which is to let you know that there are some shortcuts for people who would like to be a little more educated than they are. Lots of people dropped out of school for this reason or that, and now wish they could go back and redeem their learning, but feel like they have too big of a mountain to climb.

As an educator, I can tell you that you do not have to go back and learn every single item that you should have learned in school. In fact, the vast majority of people don't remember most of that information. There are certain things that help a person have an aura of being more learned, and here I have tried to distill this down to its very essence.

1. Build your vocabulary.It may not be fair, but most people judge how educated a person is by the words they use. A Roget's Thesaurus will do the trick, as will any number of vocabulary building books. Also, cut out the curse words. A person with a great store of words to use does not need to rely on vulgar language as a crutch.

Learning a great variety of words will give you more of a store to draw from. People who read a lot tend to have wider vocabularies than those who do not, which is probably how the idea got started that more intellectual you are, the more words you will know.

2. Read out loud from a book.This sounded silly to me when I first heard it. A friend said that he was trying to get some of the "country" out of how he talked and somebody had told him to try this. Oddly enough, it worked. You don't have to come out sounding like a national news anchor, just do it enough to get to where you want to be.

3. Invest in a book of quotations.Find a Bartlett's Familiar Quotations or some similar book. Just read over it. You'll be surprised to find that a lot of familiar sayings came from one of three sources: the Bible, Shakespeare, or Poor Richard's Almanac by Ben Franklin. Just being familiar with all the old saws of the English Language and where they came from will give you a smug feeling. Most people don't know this information.

4. Get one book with a synopsis of each of Shakespeare's plays.I had to take a Shakespeare class in college. Fortunately, I had one of these books that I happened to have picked up. I didn't have time to read the entire plays as they were assigned, so I read the synopsis. This gets the job done! Get familiar with the characters as well as the events. A lot of cultural references are based on Shakespeare.

5. Ditto with the Bible.Even if you don't believe the Bible, it doesn't hurt to be acquainted with the stories in it.

6. Get a GED book and work through it.The GED tends to be looked down on as a secondary, or "Good Enough Diploma." As a GED teacher, I can tell you that if you know enough to pass the GED, you have an education.

7. Read Cliff's Notes or MasterPlots.Get familiar with the characters and plots of most of the major works of literature.

8. Keep up with current events.Read the newspaper. Read the national news. Read all the national news magazines. You can go to the library and do this, they usually will have subscriptions to the major newspapers and magazines. Even though most magazines have a slant, usually liberal, this will teach you to read with an open mind. Take the information that you can use and discard the rest.

9. Know the history of your area.This is history come to life. Knowing about where you live is the very least you should know.

10. Show some curiosity.The more questions you ask, the more you wind up knowing. It's a fact that the smarter a person is, the more he realizes he doesn't know, and therefore asks questions.

You have made a good start by reading my enlightening piece. You're a little smarter already! Now get going, go learn some stuff.

我發(fā)現(xiàn)一個(gè)人多聰明多有教養(yǎng)跟他在學(xué)校呆了多少年沒有任何關(guān)系。我見過許多大學(xué)畢業(yè)生連上帝賦予驢子的判斷力都不具備（換句話說他們所受的教育超越了他們的智力），而還有不少連高中都沒畢業(yè)的人卻把自己教育得很棒。

我想動(dòng)機(jī)是一個(gè)必要的品質(zhì)。我不知道一個(gè)人怎么能讀了四年大學(xué)畢業(yè)的時(shí)候還和入學(xué)時(shí)一樣，呃，無知。中學(xué)里的十二年也白讀。我們提供十二年的義務(wù)教育，也許我該說十三年，因?yàn)楝F(xiàn)在大多數(shù)州把幼兒園也包括在內(nèi)了。我猜一個(gè)孩子從學(xué)校出來不會(huì)閱讀總會(huì)有人指責(zé)他的老師們。

下面讓我言歸正傳，談?wù)劚疚牡膶懽髂康模�那就是告訴你要變得更有修養(yǎng)的捷徑。許多人過去因?yàn)檫@樣或那樣的原因輟學(xué)，現(xiàn)在希望自己能回到校園繼續(xù)他們的學(xué)業(yè)，但卻發(fā)現(xiàn)難于登天。

作為一個(gè)教育者，我想告訴你，你不必回到學(xué)校去一一學(xué)習(xí)你本該學(xué)的東西。事實(shí)上大多數(shù)人出了校門就把那些東西忘了個(gè)精光。要想讓自己顯得有學(xué)問其實(shí)是有辦法的。在此我想盡可能把這些辦法的精髓提取出來：

1.建立起你的詞匯

這么說也許不公平，但是大多數(shù)人判斷一個(gè)人有沒有教養(yǎng)是看他說話所用的詞匯的。一本羅熱辭典或者其它詞匯書就可以幫你做到這一點(diǎn)。此外，你還得去掉臟話。一個(gè)具備豐富詞匯的人是不需要粗俗的語言來幫忙的。

學(xué)習(xí)各種各樣的單詞可以讓你說話時(shí)有更多的選擇。 多讀書的人比不讀書的人詞匯范圍要廣很多。你越有學(xué)識(shí)你的詞匯量就越大，這也許就是思想的源頭吧。

2. 大聲朗讀

我第一次聽說這個(gè)觀點(diǎn)的時(shí)候也覺得很荒謬。一位朋友說他想去掉他說話時(shí)透出來的“土氣”，別人讓他試試這么做。奇怪的是，這么做真的有效。你不必像個(gè)國(guó)家級(jí)的新聞主持人那樣朗讀，適可而止就可以了。

3. 買一本名人名言選集.

找一本《巴特雷氏常見名言錄》或類似的書來通讀一遍。你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)許多常見的諺語的出處無外乎是：《圣經(jīng)》，《莎士比亞全集》或是本.富蘭克林的《窮查理年鑒》。只消了解一下這些諺語和它們的出處就能讓你洋洋得意起來。大多數(shù)人是不知道這些的。

4. 找一本介紹莎士比亞所有劇本大綱的書

有一次我要在大學(xué)里教一個(gè)學(xué)習(xí)莎士比亞的班級(jí)。碰巧手頭上就有這樣一本書。我沒有時(shí)間按要求全文閱讀這些劇本，所以我只讀大綱。于是問題就解決了。熟悉里面的人物和時(shí)間就可以了。許多文化參考都是以莎士比亞為基礎(chǔ)的。

5. 《圣經(jīng)》也如法炮制

即使你不信圣經(jīng)也不妨熟悉一下里面的故事。

6. 找一本GED書來認(rèn)真地讀

人們常常瞧不起GED文憑覺得它是次等的或者覺得它不夠好。作為一名GED教師，我想說的是如果你具備通過GED考試的學(xué)識(shí)，那你就是個(gè)有文化的人了。

7. 讀一讀《克利夫筆記》或者M(jìn)asterPlots.

熟悉主要文學(xué)作品里的人物和情節(jié)。

8. 了解時(shí)事讀報(bào)紙，讀新聞，閱讀所有的國(guó)家報(bào)紙和雜志。你可以去圖書館，哪里通常訂有主要的報(bào)紙和雜志。盡管大多數(shù)雜志都有所傾向，通常是自由主義傾向，但這也可以教會(huì)你以開明的態(tài)度去閱讀。 只吸取對(duì)你有用的部分，拋棄其余的信息。

9. 了解你所在地區(qū)的歷史

這是生活中的歷史。你至少得了解你生活的地方。

10. 表現(xiàn)出一點(diǎn)好奇心

你問的問題越多最終懂的也越多。事實(shí)是一個(gè)人越聰明就越能意識(shí)到自己的無知，于是提出問題來。

讀完我這篇的啟蒙文章你就有了一個(gè)好的開始。你已經(jīng)變得聰明一些了。現(xiàn)在開始吧，去學(xué)點(diǎn)東西。