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.

我發現一個人多聰明多有教養跟他在學校呆了多少年沒有任何關系。我見過許多大學畢業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的人卻把自己教育得很棒。

我想動機是一個必要的品質。我不知道一個人怎么能讀了四年大學畢業的時候還和入學時一樣，呃，無知。中學里的十二年也白讀。我們提供十二年的義務教育，也許我該說十三年，因為現在大多數州把幼兒園也包括在內了。我猜一個孩子從學校出來不會閱讀總會有人指責他的老師們。

下面讓我言歸正傳，談談本文的寫作目的，那就是告訴你要變得更有修養的捷徑。許多人過去因為這樣或那樣的原因輟學，現在希望自己能回到校園繼續他們的學業，但卻發現難于登天。

作為一個教育者，我想告訴你，你不必回到學校去一一學習你本該學的東西。事實上大多數人出了校門就把那些東西忘了個精光。要想讓自己顯得有學問其實是有辦法的。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，但是大多數人判斷一個人有沒有教養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。此外，你還得去掉臟話。一個具備豐富詞匯的人是不需要粗俗的語言來幫忙的。

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

2. 大聲朗讀

我第一次聽說這個觀點的時候也覺得很荒謬。一位朋友說他想去掉他說話時透出來的“土氣”，別人讓他試試這么做。奇怪的是，這么做真的有效。你不必像個國家級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。你會發現許多常見的諺語的出處無外乎是：《圣經》，《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

有一次我要在大學里教一個學習莎士比亞的班級。碰巧手頭上就有這樣一本書。我沒有時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間就可以了。許多文化參考都是以莎士比亞為基礎的。

5. 《圣經》也如法炮制

即使你不信圣經也不妨熟悉一下里面的故事。

6. 找一本GED書來認真地讀

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考試的學識，那你就是個有文化的人了。

7. 讀一讀《克利夫筆記》或者MasterPlots.

熟悉主要文學作品里的人物和情節。

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

9. 了解你所在地區的歷史

這是生活中的歷史。你至少得了解你生活的地方。

10. 表現出一點好奇心

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

讀完我這篇的啟蒙文章你就有了一個好的開始。你已經變得聰明一些了。現在開始吧，去學點東西。