August 16, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode of the Falling for Learning podcast, Dr. Sheldon Greaves shares his journey of lifelong learning and the concept of guerrilla scholarship. He discusses the influence of his parents, the importance of public resources like libraries, and how curiosity can foster a love for learning. Dr. Greaves emphasizes the need for critical thinking in today's information age and the value of community in the learning process. He also reflects on his educational journey, the challenges he faced, and the joy of learning as a lifelong pursuit.
Reach out to Dr. Greaves:
email - drshel02816@gmail.com
Check out his book!
The Guerilla Scholar's Handbook
Amazon - https://a.co/d/h1LyArW
Spines: https://book.spines.com/books/the-guerrilla-scholars-handbook/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
TD Flenaugh (00:00):
TD Gueriilla Scholarship - This is an
(00:05):
exciting episode today featuringDr Sheldon Greaves. We know that
falling for learning podcast isall about the lifelong pursuit
of learning, loving to learn,and falling in love with
learning, the process oflearning, and so dr Sheldon
Greaves actually lives theactual tenants of that and he's
(00:29):
going to tell us more about hislife and his lifelong learning
pursuit. Hi, thank you so muchfor joining the falling for
learning podcast. We have thispodcast to help parents and
caregivers with having theresources, strategies and tools
needed to make sure that theirchildren are on track for
(00:50):
earning and to stay on track forsuccess. Thank you, Dr Sheldon,
for joining us. Thank you. It'smy pleasure. Can you tell us
what was that thing that madeyou fall in love with learning
as a youngster?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (01:07):
Well, like a lot of things a lot of people
like to do, I blame my parents.
My folks were both. Were bothcollege educated. My mother had
she studied English in college,but she also took a lot of
(01:29):
language study. And in fact, sheshe could get along in four
different languages, English,German, French, Italian, oh and
Latin too. She knew that aswell. And growing up, I was just
kind of exposed to this. So whenI got into first grade, I was
astonished that not everybody'smom knew Latin. I mean, that
(01:50):
just seemed like, you know,normal, right? My father had
traveled fairly extensively inEurope and the Middle East. In
his younger years, he spokefluent French, and although he
wasn't a professor or anything,both of them were very curious
(02:10):
about the world. My mother wasalso a very active in the local
friends of the public library.
Okay, the library sort ofdoubled as daycare for us. You
know, the public library. Sothere were always, we were
always either being dumped inthe midst of books, or books
(02:33):
were being dumped on us. We alsohad some wonderful things.
Public Broadcasting was kind ofa new concept back then. I
remember, in fact, in gradeschool, someone wheeled in a
television and a video machineand said, we want to test market
(02:54):
this new show for kids. It'scalled Sesame Street, you know.
Okay, tell us what you think.
The other thing too is that 1958the Congress passed a bill
called the Defense and EducationAct, and it was signed by
President Eisenhower, and thiswas a response to the launch of
(03:18):
Sputnik, the Russian satellite.
I mean, we had all been toldthat Russians were either
alcoholic factory workers orsemi literate TD farmers with
bilateral frostbite and couldnever possibly do anything like
(03:40):
this, until they did
TD Flenaugh (03:42):
and they beat the Americans. So it's like, you
gotta get into we gotta getthese kids in gear. This next
generation has to be muchbetter,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (03:50):
exactly.
And funding poured out like,like a river. You know, the kind
of funding that was normallyavailable for the Pentagon was
suddenly available for publicschools now, 58 that's the year
I was born, and by the time Igot to first grade, all those
lovely, lovely tools were thereat school waiting for me. So we
(04:11):
had all this wonderfulmultimedia stuff and movies and
film strips and and then later,video and a lot of the the early
technology was kind of beingtried out. Teachers were getting
paid a decent wage. They wereenthusiastic. They were
(04:32):
encouraged to be experimentaland innovative in the and they
were and being smart and nerdywas kind of patriotic.
TD Flenaugh (04:43):
So can you tell us what are like? You know, what
are the like, some of thosetools, we know money is pouring
out, but like, what specificallyare those tools that you got
because of this race to space?
Unknown (04:57):
Well, I I developed in an Appreciation for the public
library, not just the fact thatthey had books, but that they
had people there who could showyou all the nifty tips and
tricks that you don't normallysee like I discovered that I
could call the library thedowntown and say I'm working on
(05:20):
a report on the Philippines.
Okay, can you help me? And theysaid, Sure, and they'd send out
half a dozen books on thePhilippines with the bookmobile
that showed up followingSaturday.
TD Flenaugh (05:33):
Book mobile!
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (05:34):
yeah,
TD Flenaugh (05:35):
okay, Looked them up. You know, the
other thing that I learned wasthat there are a lot of people
around that seemed like ordinaryfolks that often know things
that you wouldn't expect. Okay,you know, you know, it turns out
so and so was a retiredengineer, so and so over here
(05:56):
was a school teacher that knowsall kinds of stuff that you
wouldn't have imagined.
So this is at the publiclibrary. They're possibly paying
people to go and help and belike information agents.
Unknown (06:11):
Well, this was there was part of that, but it was
also just the people in theneighborhood, okay, you know,
for example, you know, I'msitting there looking at it, at
a picture of a Greek temple, andmy mom comes over and explains
the three orders ofarchitecture, you know, Doric,
Ionic, Corinthian. And I'm like,yes, yeah, mom, really, you
(06:34):
know?
TD Flenaugh (06:36):
And then so I Yeah.
So what I think is reallyimportant for us to highlight is
that it sounds like you had alot of access to things. But
what I hear is, you know, someof it, of course, is, you know,
we don't all have access toparents who are like, maybe
highly educated, depending onwho we are. But I hear the
library. I hear PublicBroadcasting, which is still
(06:57):
free for now, hopefully. And sothese are things that we really
need to still take advantage of,and it doesn't. And so I may
have grown up like on the loweryou know, you know more less,
less money, right?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (07:13):
Sure,
TD Flenaugh (07:14):
less, you know, access there. But I did. I was a
library kid, you know, that wasone of my secondary babysitters
as well. So I definitely canrelate. And I definitely was,
and I thought I was an originalPBS kid, but it sounds like in
the 1950s they had PBS kids aswell.
Unknown (07:33):
Yeah, yeah, there were some wonderful shows. I mean, it
was all kind of, I don't knowwhat the word is a little
amateurish, maybe, but they gotthe job done, you know,
TD Flenaugh (07:43):
yeah. And I did realize that later on, when I
was watching Mr. Rogers, thatMr. Rogers had long retired, or
whatever. I didn't know, but Iwas watching him when I was a
little kid.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (07:54):
Yeah,
TD Flenaugh (07:54):
they even have like, a new iteration, like
Daniel's Tiger or something likethat is an iteration. Oh, I
haven't heard about that, butthat's great. It's like, little
puppets and stuff like that arelike a little cartoon, but it's
like, still like, it's like a,you know, remnant of Mr. Rogers
Neighborhood.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (08:13):
Okay,
TD Flenaugh (08:14):
so, but those things are free that we can give
access to our children depend,and it doesn't even matter
income level, we can go and takeour kids to the library. We
could take them we could, youknow, focus in on letting them
see some public television andall that. So that was, that's
something I had access to aswell.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (08:35):
So yeah, and, you know, it's amazing what
you could do when you don't havea lot of money. I mean, for most
of my growing up like my dad,was a chimney sweep. For God's
sake, you know it despite, youknow, he had this. He had this
talent for getting into a fieldjust before the bottom would
fall out of it. Okay, but hefinally found this. This got
this chimney sweeping business,and that that carried him
(08:58):
through until, um, until hedecided he was too old to do
that. Then he went and got hismaster's in social work, which
was kind of cool because he gothis master's degree the same
year I got mine. So that wasfun. But the other thing too is
that if parents displaycuriosity, genuine curiosity.
(09:21):
The kids pick up on that. Yeah,so there's an example in in my
book. I've just recentlypublished a book about all this,
called the gorilla scholarshandbook.
TD Flenaugh (09:33):
Can you hold it up for us?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (09:35):
Yeah, have a copy?
TD Flenaugh (09:41):
Okay?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (09:41):
Oh, you can call Guerilla. Absolutely.
TD Flenaugh (09:44):
The Guerilla Scholars Handbook. Love it.
Okay, yes. So these this pursuitof knowledge and curiosity that
you saw your parents doing, thatyou were emulating someone, it
later on led to you becoming aGuerilla Scholar. So let's get
into what that is, because youcoined this term, right? Uh huh.
(10:06):
Tell us what it is.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (10:07):
Guerrilla scholarship is doing
intellectual work by usingcreative and unconventional
approaches to finding things outand working with information. So
here's an example of guerrillascholarship. There was this,
this guy, he was a lawyer, andhe used to find, you'll see
(10:31):
articles and stuff on the web,and he would make printouts of
them and bring them home to hiskids, because he thought they
might be interested in them. Andthere was one that he brought
home by a guy, a scholar, namedRichard Jensen, and it was about
Irish immigrants. And Jensen'spaper claimed that this whole
(10:55):
thing about No Irish Need Applywas actually a myth, that it
didn't really happen. Well, hisdaughter, Rebecca. Rebecca freed
was her name. She's an eighthgrader, and she sees this paper,
and she thinks that seems weird,so she goes on to Google image,
(11:19):
and she starts looking, and shestarts finding all these period
pictures with signs in thewindow that say, No, Irish Need
Apply, like, hmm. So she startsgathering more and more stuff.
And then this is where it reallybecomes important. She She
contacted another scholar, aretired scholar, disagreed with
(11:44):
Jensen's thesis, and she showedhim her stuff, and she says,
Have I got something here? Andhe looked at it, and he goes,
Uh, yeah. So what he did was hehelped Rebecca take her material
and craft it into a paper thatcould be submitted for peer
review. It was, it was actuallyprinted in the same journal that
(12:08):
Jensen's paper was printed in,and kind of pretty much, you
know, knocked his thesis downseveral notches. So that's one
example. You know, it's, it'sunusual, but it is possible
TD Flenaugh (12:22):
that's really, really important to highlight
for parents, like helping kidsto see how the you know, what
they learn, can be used to helpempower them. Right? We're in an
age with over information, andnot all of it is true, and how
do you sort it out? And you knowthat ability to read and to
(12:45):
think, critical thinking,curiosity research, all of that
can help you know, bolster yourchild. We know that a lot of
kids like to argue, and we canhelp them to turn that into a
tool for advancement forthemselves and advancement for
their community. And we knowthat a lot of misinformation
(13:06):
about history is, you know, theywant to silence certain people's
history. Say that it didn'thappen, say that it's not
important, or whatever, and heor she was able to stand up and
show the proof, and actually,you know, advocate for herself
and her community. Well, I don'tknow she was, she Irish? Yes,
right? No,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (13:26):
she just, just a curious eighth grader, so
TD Flenaugh (13:29):
not her own community, but just, you know,
just yeah, you know, provingmisinformation and obviously
somebody's community, you know,where people are trying to, you
know, kind of eliminate or erasesomething that they have gone
through your ancestors or familymembers?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (13:45):
Yeah, I have an entire chapter dedicated
to this whole problem ofdisinformation with a nod to
Harry Potter. The title Thechapter is Defense Against the
Dark Arts. So,
TD Flenaugh (13:59):
yeah, that's scary stuff.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (14:01):
It is really scary
TD Flenaugh (14:02):
when, when I could tell you that your family's
atrocities or whatever is notthat important, didn't happen.
Or, you know, like, No, it's notimportant, didn't happen. You
know, it's a big, big issue
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (14:16):
It is a big issue. And, and another big
problem is that you get so manyconflicting ideas and opinions
and whatever, yes, that youreach a point where you you
decide you can't possibly knowwhat's real.
TD Flenaugh (14:33):
Yeah, it's for the people who are not you know, as
we get further and further awayfrom the history, and we know
history repeats itself,especially, we didn't learn
those lessons, right? Yeah,yeah,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (14:44):
yeah, yeah.
So we talked a little bit aboutthat, and about how information
bubbles happen, and about howyou can take a look and vet
sources, yeah, and kind ofdevelop your own network. Do?
One of the weirder twists in mycareer was while I was in
graduate school, I got muggedone night, and that set me on a
(15:10):
path to learn how to protectmyself. Well, one thing led to
another, and I found myself atthe school that was intended to
was for training High Threatlevel bodyguards, okay? And I
liked their approach to martialarts because they didn't teach
(15:31):
it as a sport. They taught it asa job skill.
TD Flenaugh (15:35):
I see, yeah.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (15:37):
And one day, the head of the school. He
found out that I had an advanceddegree. He takes me into his
office. He says, Hey, listen,I've got this idea. I want to
take this little school, and Iwant to turn it into an actual
university. Yeah, and you knowthat would cover not just
protection, but intelligence andcounter terrorism. How would you
(16:00):
like to co found a universitywith me, and I'm kind of like,
you know, yeah, we started withpractically nothing, but we
eventually did end up, you know,creating what became Henley
Putnam University, which was thefirst university to do something
like that. And so I learned thecraft of intelligence from
(16:23):
professionals. And why that'simportant is that the
intelligence analyst always hasto be aware that someone is
trying to deceive them. Someoneis always throwing falsehoods at
you, kind of like where all ofus are now,
TD Flenaugh (16:41):
yeah, that's, that's an important thing to
think about early on. I do haveto say, as a youngster, I was
more like just believing a lotof things, right? You know, you
pick up the book, you read thebook, that book is true, and
that is a dangerous place to be,especially now, you know. And of
(17:02):
course, it's maybe not be abook, it might be Instagram,
like I saw it. And I hearsometimes people who are just,
you know, little kids orwhatever, or people who are just
not informed. They're just like,Yeah, I saw it on the internet,
and it's like, well, that's notan actual source. I mean, like,
which website, which, you know,video, who did that? Video? What
(17:24):
was their positionality? Butit's something because parents
also have less control over whattheir kids see in here.
The rewrite method and therewrite method workbook are your
(17:44):
go to resource for helping kidsto learn to fall in love with
writing. It has the tips, tools,resources, strategies and skill
building activities to help kidsfall out of writing heat and
(18:07):
into loving to write. Get yourbook set today. You
TD, and you know, we werereflecting on this before on the
podcast, before, you know, youturned on that one radio or
(18:30):
thing, and we're all listeningto the same music. You grow up
with the music of your mom,yeah, your dad. And now it's
like, I have my device. My momhas her device. My dad has his
advice. My sister has, you know,so we're not listening to the
same music that algorithm isshaping, you know, like, what
I'm interested in, and I may notknow what my mom's music is,
(18:50):
right? Or I'm watching, we'reall sitting down and watching
the television show together,yeah? Now everybody has their
own little device, their ownshow that they could watch, and
it's like, I don't know whatshow you're talking about. Never
seen it, you know. And so we arenot, you know. So that means all
the video not video games, butvideo games obviously have some
(19:14):
control. But also, like thecommercials, the you know, the
the messages that you're gettingare so different for the kids
and they are for the adults, andso they need their own critical
eye, because they're seeing somuch that we aren't able to say,
look at that silly commercialabout the cocoa crispies. Cocoa
(19:35):
crispies are not really good.
You know, when we're kids, ourparents can say, Coco crispies
are not good for you. It's notnotice they said nutritious
breakfast. They're not sayingit's healthy. You know, even
though nutritious, people think,Oh, sounds like healthy. Like,
no, not, not healthy. So, but wedon't even know what the
commercial to warn our kidsabout now, to be like, That's
not okay. We don't know whatthey've seen. And then, you
(19:57):
know, we know videos just pop.
But, you know, and maybe theywere watching this show, but
then something else pops up,something's on the site that
they click on, and so it's sogood for them to it's so
important for them to have theirown critical thinking, their own
critical eye, their medialiteracy, right? You know, be
able to be critical of thosemessages that are hitting them
(20:20):
from all points, right? Yes,absolutely. The billboards, even
I'm like, should they? Shouldall kids be able to see this
billboard? You know, like a lotof stuff,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (20:31):
yeah, we can you touch on another really
important point, and that wasthat we were doing this
together, and we don't do thatanymore. Well, that's one of the
things that I stress a lot whenI talk about guerrilla
scholarship, is it's best donecommunally. You know, form a
reading group, form a salon, geta few people together for
(20:54):
heaven's sake. You know, theperfect university could be two
people sitting on either end ofa very short log discussing
passionately something, youknow.
TD Flenaugh (21:05):
Yeah, I just want to back up. You use the term
salon. And while I know whatyou're talking about, maybe some
of our audience members, youknow. Is it where you get your
hair done? What are youreferring to?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (21:18):
Fair point, yeah, back in the day. And this
is like going back to the 18th,18th century, the salon,
actually, come to think of it.
No, this goes back to Romantimes. Someone who had, you
know, a house, some space, andusually some money, would bring
together interesting people andset a topic of discussion, and
(21:43):
then the people would discussit, and people would come either
to participate or to watch, andthey would kind of have these
freewheeling debates. And peoplewould be selected, you know,
based on their knowledge orbased on their wit, or, you
know, whatever. And very in manycases, some of the really
(22:10):
important ideas in in westernpolitics were actually kind of
thrashed out in these salons,mostly in Paris and other parts
of France. And actually, infact, there's a section in my
book that talks about inAmerica, about antebellum
(22:34):
African American literarysocieties, yes, yes, yeah, where
they were figuring out the wholeabolition and thing, and how are
they going to do this, and usingthese salons as a vehicle for
teaching reading and literacyand political understanding, and
(22:55):
a lot of the ideas thatunderpinned the American
Revolution and the FrenchRevolution were formed in the
salons of Paris. A lot of as yousay, abolitionist ideas were
formed in these African Americanantebellum societies. They're
(23:16):
just really important. AfterWorld War One, they kind of fell
out of fashion, but there were acouple that that came back.
There was one in the 1920s itwas called the House of truth,
and it involved some low levelfunctionaries, government
(23:37):
functionaries in Washington, DC,but they managed. I mean, just
about everybody who was anybodyended up passing through that
salon. I mean, you know, likejudge Brandeis and all these
other people, including the guy,one of the founding members, and
I can't remember his name, buthe was the sculptor who
conceived and carved MountRushmore, okay, that guy.
TD Flenaugh (24:01):
That's interesting.
That's something that peopleshould bring back. It sounds
like, well, I don't know. I'mthinking like podcasts are a new
salon then, right? Becausepeople are just like, discussing
their ideas. And there'sdefinitely groups of people.
Sometimes there's just two,sometimes there's just one, but
it gets discussion going, rightabout different things happening
(24:23):
in our society. So maybe that'sour new salon. It could welcome
to the falling for learningsalon. Guys,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (24:32):
brilliant.
I love it,
TD Flenaugh (24:35):
all right, so you, can you tell us about the your
educational journey like, wheredid you go? Where did you study?
What were the subjects you werestudying? Let's learn more about
this guerilla scholarship inaction,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (24:51):
right?
Well, my now, I have to make adisclaimer here at first,
because when I started college,it was actually. Possible to get
through college without, youknow, having to put your left
kidney in the hock in order topay for it, all you know.
TD Flenaugh (25:09):
Okay, so tell us what it was though, like, what
were they, what school and what?
Like, what was that tuitionlike, right,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (25:15):
right. So I had my my first undergraduate
school was a little collegecalled Rick's College in Idaho,
and I went there to studytheater because they had a good
theater department, and I wasvery much into that sort of
thing. And I also had done alittle bit of broadcasting work,
actually, my summer job before Iwent to college, I was, I was a
(25:38):
disc jockey at a radio station,so I did that for a while.
Decided, okay, that it'sinteresting, but I'm not sure
that there's really a futurethere. I spent some time to
travel abroad, spent some timein Europe, just basically
wandering around, picked up someof the language there, came back
(26:03):
and decided I wanted, well, Iwasn't sure what I wanted to do,
but I actually managed to get, Igot a scholarship at at BYU in
Utah, okay, and I Started out inearth science, and kind of got
sidetracked, because of all ofall the subjects that I study,
(26:27):
math is kind of my white whale,you know, and I had this class
that I had to take. It wasintermediate algebra. I studied
like mad for it like crazy.
Spent hours and hours on it andgot a C and something snapped. I
dropped out of the University. Iwent back to my hometown of
(26:51):
Salem, Oregon, and I went to thecommunity college there, and I
took math classes just todemonstrate to myself whether I
really was just math stupid ornot. And I got far enough to
say, okay, I can, I can managethis. Then I went back and back
to to BYU, and I decided Ibecome very fascinated with the
(27:18):
ancient Near East, what we callthe Middle East today. Okay, and
so I and I decided, okay, I can,I can do the math, but I'm
better with languages, becausethat's in that field is very
language heavy. So I starteddoing that. Got to the end of my
bachelor's degree in NearEastern Studies. That's about
(27:41):
the time I met my spouse. We metin the library, and, yeah, there
was this cute blonde in thecorner reading Aristotle in
Greek like it was a newspaper.
And I'm like,
TD Flenaugh (27:55):
I want to get to know her. A meeting of the
minds.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (27:59):
Meeting of the minds, yep. And you know,
it's been, what, 41 years, andwe're still together. So she was
a classicist. She did well. Shealso had a degree in music, but
we, we decided to to getmarried. The one issue was, I
(28:20):
needed to get a master's degreein order to pursue a doctorate.
She already had her Master's.
She just finished it, and she'dbeen accepted with a full
scholarship to Stanford. Rightnow they Stanford said, Well,
look, we can, we can put it off,hold it off for a year. And so I
went to my advisor, and I said,Dave, his name was, was Dave
(28:42):
Montgomery, Dave, you got tohelp me. I need to get a two
year master's degree in oneyear. Can we do it? He says,
Well, we'll figure out a way todo it. So we did that. Then I
got accepted at Berkeley, so weboth were at least in the same
city, and we rival schools. Theyare Rival Schools. I know it
was, it was endless fun. I wouldwear a Stanford sweatshirt at
(29:05):
Berkeley, and she'd wearBerkeley sweatshirt at Stanford,
and just piss people off, but,but this is kind of where some
of the some of the gorilla stuffcomes in, because we were living
in very close to Stanfordcampus, and I found a way to get
into the Stanford librarybecause I didn't want to make
the hour, 45 minute commute if Ineeded to use the library
TD Flenaugh (29:30):
up there. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (29:33):
also discovered that a lot of the
things that I needed were in alibrary that belonged to a local
Catholic seminary in Menlo Parkthat most people didn't even
know was there, and got to knowthe librarian there. He was. He
was a hoot. He was, he was asouthern ordained Southern
Baptist minister who was thelibrarian at a Catholic library,
(29:56):
Catholic seminary. I don't knowhow that happened, but he was.
Great. He was, he was a lot ofhelp. The other problem too was
that it's expensive living inthe Bay Area, and it even back
then, huh? Even back then, itwas starting to get, you know,
kind of pricey. And so what wewould have to do is, after she
(30:19):
finished, after her scholarshipran out, we would trade off, she
would go to school and I wouldwork, and then after the end of
that year, I would go to schooland she would work, and we would
just kind of take thesefinancial leaves of absence.
Teamwork. Wow, yeah, but in themeantime, if I was working and
not going to school, I stillneeded to find ways to keep
(30:43):
going on my studies, right? Andthat meant that I had to either
like, approach professorsdirectly and say, you know, kind
of off the books, so to speak,and say, what can you do? You
know, help me talk to otherstudents. Find other ways to
research certain things. Theinternet was just kind of
(31:05):
becoming a thing. When I startedmy my doctoral program, there
was no such thing as as theWorld Wide Web. It hadn't been
invented yet and and in fact,Stanford still had their card
catalog in their library, right?
And they were just starting toreplace it with an electronic
catalog that we could access onour little Macintosh through a
(31:29):
300 baud modem. That was, thatwas all very, you know, war
games and stuff. So you have to,you have to get creative about
how you get information and howyou you keep track of it.
Another thing that I learned washow to, how do you how to apply
the used book market? Becausesometimes there was a book I
(31:56):
needed and I couldn't find itand or the library had it, but I
couldn't check it out because Ididn't have a current card, so
I'd have to find some way eitherto buy it or to get up through
the public library. And Idiscovered that the public
library has all kinds of stuffthat most people have no ideas
even there, but if you go andtalk to the reference librarian,
(32:21):
my God, it's just like, wow.
Where did all this come from?
Another thing I came to discoverwas government documents. The US
government is the largestpublisher of English language
materials in the world. There'slike something like 8000 new
titles that come out everymonth, and they're about
(32:43):
everything, just everything nowthat might not be as true now as
it was before, certainly notthen. But by law, every
congressional district has tohave at least one government
documents repository, and eachrepository has to have people
(33:06):
who know how to find stuff. Andvery often, you can go to a
government document source andtalk to someone there, and they
can put you in, you know, findstuff for you. Or the government
also keeps an index of experts,government experts. You can say,
(33:28):
I need to find an expert on, Idon't know, spotted owls or
something. And they can look inthis thing and say, well,
there's this wildlife biologistin the department of such and
such, and she knows everythingabout it. Here's her phone
number, you know,
TD Flenaugh (33:47):
my goodness, so there's, like, that's some new
information. Yeah, it soundslike your book is just full of
amazing strategies, resources,and that's what we're all about
here on the falling for learningpodcast,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (34:03):
wow, this can keep you busy for a long
time. So where can we get yourbook? It is available on Amazon
at the moment. It's available inhardcover, soft cover, ebook and
audiobook. The audiobook isavailable from like six
different platforms. They'vethey've gotten that one out
(34:27):
there pretty quick. You can alsofind it through book finder.com
There will be other thingscoming on online sooner. So I'm
told the thing just waspublished on June 25 so it
hasn't been out that
TD Flenaugh (34:42):
great. All right?
And can you tell us your whatyour doctoral degree is in my
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (34:50):
doctoral degree is in Ancient Near
Eastern Studies. My primary areaof emphasis is the Hebrew Bible,
or the Old Testament. Oh, okay,Old Testament.
TD Flenaugh (35:03):
So okay, well, that's amazing. I am so glad
that you joined us today on thefalling for learning podcast.
Are there any like final thingsthat you could talk to parents
about that really helped you todevelop as a learner?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (35:20):
Um, what really has kind of stuck with me
is that learning is fun. It is apleasure. If you're not, if
you're not enjoying it, you'renot learning. There's a there's
a quote from T H White's bookThe Once and Future King, about
(35:45):
King Arthur and all this. Andit's Merlin talking to Arthur,
and he's, I guess Arthur'shaving a rough day or something.
And Merlin says the best thingfor being sad is to learn
something that is the only thingthat never fails, and that has
(36:05):
just stuck with me. I too muchof what we try to learn is about
getting a job or gettingprestige or something like that.
Get all that learning is fun.
Doggone it, it's there's so muchfun to be had, and I worry that
we're missing
TD Flenaugh (36:26):
that. That's awesome advice. Thank you so
much. Dr Sheldon Greaves forjoining us, and for all of the
listeners and viewers out there,please do something today that
you're going that's going togive your child the competitive
advantage. Please like andsubscribe. Have a great week.
Thanks again for supporting thefalling for learning podcast.
(36:47):
New Episodes go live everySaturday at 5pm you can watch us
on youtube.com at falling forlearning or listen on all major
podcast platforms such as Apple,Google, Audible, Spotify and
much more for more resources,visit falling in love with
(37:11):
learning.com we reallyappreciate you. Have a wonderful
week.
TD Gueriilla Scholarship - This is an
(00:05):
exciting episode today featuringDr Sheldon Greaves. We know that
falling for learning podcast isall about the lifelong pursuit
of learning, loving to learn,and falling in love with
learning, the process oflearning, and so dr Sheldon
Greaves actually lives theactual tenants of that and he's
(00:29):
going to tell us more about hislife and his lifelong learning
pursuit. Hi, thank you so muchfor joining the falling for
learning podcast. We have thispodcast to help parents and
caregivers with having theresources, strategies and tools
needed to make sure that theirchildren are on track for
(00:50):
earning and to stay on track forsuccess. Thank you, Dr Sheldon,
for joining us. Thank you. It'smy pleasure. Can you tell us
what was that thing that madeyou fall in love with learning
as a youngster?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (01:07):
Well, like a lot of things a lot of people
like to do, I blame my parents.
My folks were both. Were bothcollege educated. My mother had
she studied English in college,but she also took a lot of
(01:29):
language study. And in fact, sheshe could get along in four
different languages, English,German, French, Italian, oh and
Latin too. She knew that aswell. And growing up, I was just
kind of exposed to this. So whenI got into first grade, I was
astonished that not everybody'smom knew Latin. I mean, that
(01:50):
just seemed like, you know,normal, right? My father had
traveled fairly extensively inEurope and the Middle East. In
his younger years, he spokefluent French, and although he
wasn't a professor or anything,both of them were very curious
(02:10):
about the world. My mother wasalso a very active in the local
friends of the public library.
Okay, the library sort ofdoubled as daycare for us. You
know, the public library. Sothere were always, we were
always either being dumped inthe midst of books, or books
(02:33):
were being dumped on us. We alsohad some wonderful things.
Public Broadcasting was kind ofa new concept back then. I
remember, in fact, in gradeschool, someone wheeled in a
television and a video machineand said, we want to test market
(02:54):
this new show for kids. It'scalled Sesame Street, you know.
Okay, tell us what you think.
The other thing too is that 1958the Congress passed a bill
called the Defense and EducationAct, and it was signed by
President Eisenhower, and thiswas a response to the launch of
(03:18):
Sputnik, the Russian satellite.
I mean, we had all been toldthat Russians were either
alcoholic factory workers orsemi literate TD farmers with
bilateral frostbite and couldnever possibly do anything like
(03:40):
this, until they did
TD Flenaugh (03:42):
and they beat the Americans. So it's like, you
gotta get into we gotta getthese kids in gear. This next
generation has to be muchbetter,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (03:50):
exactly.
And funding poured out like,like a river. You know, the kind
of funding that was normallyavailable for the Pentagon was
suddenly available for publicschools now, 58 that's the year
I was born, and by the time Igot to first grade, all those
lovely, lovely tools were thereat school waiting for me. So we
(04:11):
had all this wonderfulmultimedia stuff and movies and
film strips and and then later,video and a lot of the the early
technology was kind of beingtried out. Teachers were getting
paid a decent wage. They wereenthusiastic. They were
(04:32):
encouraged to be experimentaland innovative in the and they
were and being smart and nerdywas kind of patriotic.
TD Flenaugh (04:43):
So can you tell us what are like? You know, what
are the like, some of thosetools, we know money is pouring
out, but like, what specificallyare those tools that you got
because of this race to space?
Unknown (04:57):
Well, I I developed in an Appreciation for the public
library, not just the fact thatthey had books, but that they
had people there who could showyou all the nifty tips and
tricks that you don't normallysee like I discovered that I
could call the library thedowntown and say I'm working on
(05:20):
a report on the Philippines.
Okay, can you help me? And theysaid, Sure, and they'd send out
half a dozen books on thePhilippines with the bookmobile
that showed up followingSaturday.
TD Flenaugh (05:33):
Book mobile!
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (05:34):
yeah,
TD Flenaugh (05:35):
okay, Looked them up. You know, the
other thing that I learned wasthat there are a lot of people
around that seemed like ordinaryfolks that often know things
that you wouldn't expect. Okay,you know, you know, it turns out
so and so was a retiredengineer, so and so over here
(05:56):
was a school teacher that knowsall kinds of stuff that you
wouldn't have imagined.
So this is at the publiclibrary. They're possibly paying
people to go and help and belike information agents.
Unknown (06:11):
Well, this was there was part of that, but it was
also just the people in theneighborhood, okay, you know,
for example, you know, I'msitting there looking at it, at
a picture of a Greek temple, andmy mom comes over and explains
the three orders ofarchitecture, you know, Doric,
Ionic, Corinthian. And I'm like,yes, yeah, mom, really, you
(06:34):
know?
TD Flenaugh (06:36):
And then so I Yeah.
So what I think is reallyimportant for us to highlight is
that it sounds like you had alot of access to things. But
what I hear is, you know, someof it, of course, is, you know,
we don't all have access toparents who are like, maybe
highly educated, depending onwho we are. But I hear the
library. I hear PublicBroadcasting, which is still
(06:57):
free for now, hopefully. And sothese are things that we really
need to still take advantage of,and it doesn't. And so I may
have grown up like on the loweryou know, you know more less,
less money, right?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (07:13):
Sure,
TD Flenaugh (07:14):
less, you know, access there. But I did. I was a
library kid, you know, that wasone of my secondary babysitters
as well. So I definitely canrelate. And I definitely was,
and I thought I was an originalPBS kid, but it sounds like in
the 1950s they had PBS kids aswell.
Unknown (07:33):
Yeah, yeah, there were some wonderful shows. I mean, it
was all kind of, I don't knowwhat the word is a little
amateurish, maybe, but they gotthe job done, you know,
TD Flenaugh (07:43):
yeah. And I did realize that later on, when I
was watching Mr. Rogers, thatMr. Rogers had long retired, or
whatever. I didn't know, but Iwas watching him when I was a
little kid.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (07:54):
Yeah,
TD Flenaugh (07:54):
they even have like, a new iteration, like
Daniel's Tiger or something likethat is an iteration. Oh, I
haven't heard about that, butthat's great. It's like, little
puppets and stuff like that arelike a little cartoon, but it's
like, still like, it's like a,you know, remnant of Mr. Rogers
Neighborhood.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (08:13):
Okay,
TD Flenaugh (08:14):
so, but those things are free that we can give
access to our children depend,and it doesn't even matter
income level, we can go and takeour kids to the library. We
could take them we could, youknow, focus in on letting them
see some public television andall that. So that was, that's
something I had access to aswell.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (08:35):
So yeah, and, you know, it's amazing what
you could do when you don't havea lot of money. I mean, for most
of my growing up like my dad,was a chimney sweep. For God's
sake, you know it despite, youknow, he had this. He had this
talent for getting into a fieldjust before the bottom would
fall out of it. Okay, but hefinally found this. This got
this chimney sweeping business,and that that carried him
(08:58):
through until, um, until hedecided he was too old to do
that. Then he went and got hismaster's in social work, which
was kind of cool because he gothis master's degree the same
year I got mine. So that wasfun. But the other thing too is
that if parents displaycuriosity, genuine curiosity.
(09:21):
The kids pick up on that. Yeah,so there's an example in in my
book. I've just recentlypublished a book about all this,
called the gorilla scholarshandbook.
TD Flenaugh (09:33):
Can you hold it up for us?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (09:35):
Yeah, have a copy?
TD Flenaugh (09:41):
Okay?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (09:41):
Oh, you can call Guerilla. Absolutely.
TD Flenaugh (09:44):
The Guerilla Scholars Handbook. Love it.
Okay, yes. So these this pursuitof knowledge and curiosity that
you saw your parents doing, thatyou were emulating someone, it
later on led to you becoming aGuerilla Scholar. So let's get
into what that is, because youcoined this term, right? Uh huh.
(10:06):
Tell us what it is.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (10:07):
Guerrilla scholarship is doing
intellectual work by usingcreative and unconventional
approaches to finding things outand working with information. So
here's an example of guerrillascholarship. There was this,
this guy, he was a lawyer, andhe used to find, you'll see
(10:31):
articles and stuff on the web,and he would make printouts of
them and bring them home to hiskids, because he thought they
might be interested in them. Andthere was one that he brought
home by a guy, a scholar, namedRichard Jensen, and it was about
Irish immigrants. And Jensen'spaper claimed that this whole
(10:55):
thing about No Irish Need Applywas actually a myth, that it
didn't really happen. Well, hisdaughter, Rebecca. Rebecca freed
was her name. She's an eighthgrader, and she sees this paper,
and she thinks that seems weird,so she goes on to Google image,
(11:19):
and she starts looking, and shestarts finding all these period
pictures with signs in thewindow that say, No, Irish Need
Apply, like, hmm. So she startsgathering more and more stuff.
And then this is where it reallybecomes important. She She
contacted another scholar, aretired scholar, disagreed with
(11:44):
Jensen's thesis, and she showedhim her stuff, and she says,
Have I got something here? Andhe looked at it, and he goes,
Uh, yeah. So what he did was hehelped Rebecca take her material
and craft it into a paper thatcould be submitted for peer
review. It was, it was actuallyprinted in the same journal that
(12:08):
Jensen's paper was printed in,and kind of pretty much, you
know, knocked his thesis downseveral notches. So that's one
example. You know, it's, it'sunusual, but it is possible
TD Flenaugh (12:22):
that's really, really important to highlight
for parents, like helping kidsto see how the you know, what
they learn, can be used to helpempower them. Right? We're in an
age with over information, andnot all of it is true, and how
do you sort it out? And you knowthat ability to read and to
(12:45):
think, critical thinking,curiosity research, all of that
can help you know, bolster yourchild. We know that a lot of
kids like to argue, and we canhelp them to turn that into a
tool for advancement forthemselves and advancement for
their community. And we knowthat a lot of misinformation
(13:06):
about history is, you know, theywant to silence certain people's
history. Say that it didn'thappen, say that it's not
important, or whatever, and heor she was able to stand up and
show the proof, and actually,you know, advocate for herself
and her community. Well, I don'tknow she was, she Irish? Yes,
right? No,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (13:26):
she just, just a curious eighth grader, so
TD Flenaugh (13:29):
not her own community, but just, you know,
just yeah, you know, provingmisinformation and obviously
somebody's community, you know,where people are trying to, you
know, kind of eliminate or erasesomething that they have gone
through your ancestors or familymembers?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (13:45):
Yeah, I have an entire chapter dedicated
to this whole problem ofdisinformation with a nod to
Harry Potter. The title Thechapter is Defense Against the
Dark Arts. So,
TD Flenaugh (13:59):
yeah, that's scary stuff.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (14:01):
It is really scary
TD Flenaugh (14:02):
when, when I could tell you that your family's
atrocities or whatever is notthat important, didn't happen.
Or, you know, like, No, it's notimportant, didn't happen. You
know, it's a big, big issue
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (14:16):
It is a big issue. And, and another big
problem is that you get so manyconflicting ideas and opinions
and whatever, yes, that youreach a point where you you
decide you can't possibly knowwhat's real.
TD Flenaugh (14:33):
Yeah, it's for the people who are not you know, as
we get further and further awayfrom the history, and we know
history repeats itself,especially, we didn't learn
those lessons, right? Yeah,yeah,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (14:44):
yeah, yeah.
So we talked a little bit aboutthat, and about how information
bubbles happen, and about howyou can take a look and vet
sources, yeah, and kind ofdevelop your own network. Do?
One of the weirder twists in mycareer was while I was in
graduate school, I got muggedone night, and that set me on a
(15:10):
path to learn how to protectmyself. Well, one thing led to
another, and I found myself atthe school that was intended to
was for training High Threatlevel bodyguards, okay? And I
liked their approach to martialarts because they didn't teach
(15:31):
it as a sport. They taught it asa job skill.
TD Flenaugh (15:35):
I see, yeah.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (15:37):
And one day, the head of the school. He
found out that I had an advanceddegree. He takes me into his
office. He says, Hey, listen,I've got this idea. I want to
take this little school, and Iwant to turn it into an actual
university. Yeah, and you knowthat would cover not just
protection, but intelligence andcounter terrorism. How would you
(16:00):
like to co found a universitywith me, and I'm kind of like,
you know, yeah, we started withpractically nothing, but we
eventually did end up, you know,creating what became Henley
Putnam University, which was thefirst university to do something
like that. And so I learned thecraft of intelligence from
(16:23):
professionals. And why that'simportant is that the
intelligence analyst always hasto be aware that someone is
trying to deceive them. Someoneis always throwing falsehoods at
you, kind of like where all ofus are now,
TD Flenaugh (16:41):
yeah, that's, that's an important thing to
think about early on. I do haveto say, as a youngster, I was
more like just believing a lotof things, right? You know, you
pick up the book, you read thebook, that book is true, and
that is a dangerous place to be,especially now, you know. And of
(17:02):
course, it's maybe not be abook, it might be Instagram,
like I saw it. And I hearsometimes people who are just,
you know, little kids orwhatever, or people who are just
not informed. They're just like,Yeah, I saw it on the internet,
and it's like, well, that's notan actual source. I mean, like,
which website, which, you know,video, who did that? Video? What
(17:24):
was their positionality? Butit's something because parents
also have less control over whattheir kids see in here.
The rewrite method and therewrite method workbook are your
(17:44):
go to resource for helping kidsto learn to fall in love with
writing. It has the tips, tools,resources, strategies and skill
building activities to help kidsfall out of writing heat and
(18:07):
into loving to write. Get yourbook set today. You
TD, and you know, we werereflecting on this before on the
podcast, before, you know, youturned on that one radio or
(18:30):
thing, and we're all listeningto the same music. You grow up
with the music of your mom,yeah, your dad. And now it's
like, I have my device. My momhas her device. My dad has his
advice. My sister has, you know,so we're not listening to the
same music that algorithm isshaping, you know, like, what
I'm interested in, and I may notknow what my mom's music is,
(18:50):
right? Or I'm watching, we'reall sitting down and watching
the television show together,yeah? Now everybody has their
own little device, their ownshow that they could watch, and
it's like, I don't know whatshow you're talking about. Never
seen it, you know. And so we arenot, you know. So that means all
the video not video games, butvideo games obviously have some
(19:14):
control. But also, like thecommercials, the you know, the
the messages that you're gettingare so different for the kids
and they are for the adults, andso they need their own critical
eye, because they're seeing somuch that we aren't able to say,
look at that silly commercialabout the cocoa crispies. Cocoa
(19:35):
crispies are not really good.
You know, when we're kids, ourparents can say, Coco crispies
are not good for you. It's notnotice they said nutritious
breakfast. They're not sayingit's healthy. You know, even
though nutritious, people think,Oh, sounds like healthy. Like,
no, not, not healthy. So, but wedon't even know what the
commercial to warn our kidsabout now, to be like, That's
not okay. We don't know whatthey've seen. And then, you
(19:57):
know, we know videos just pop.
But, you know, and maybe theywere watching this show, but
then something else pops up,something's on the site that
they click on, and so it's sogood for them to it's so
important for them to have theirown critical thinking, their own
critical eye, their medialiteracy, right? You know, be
able to be critical of thosemessages that are hitting them
(20:20):
from all points, right? Yes,absolutely. The billboards, even
I'm like, should they? Shouldall kids be able to see this
billboard? You know, like a lotof stuff,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (20:31):
yeah, we can you touch on another really
important point, and that wasthat we were doing this
together, and we don't do thatanymore. Well, that's one of the
things that I stress a lot whenI talk about guerrilla
scholarship, is it's best donecommunally. You know, form a
reading group, form a salon, geta few people together for
(20:54):
heaven's sake. You know, theperfect university could be two
people sitting on either end ofa very short log discussing
passionately something, youknow.
TD Flenaugh (21:05):
Yeah, I just want to back up. You use the term
salon. And while I know whatyou're talking about, maybe some
of our audience members, youknow. Is it where you get your
hair done? What are youreferring to?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (21:18):
Fair point, yeah, back in the day. And this
is like going back to the 18th,18th century, the salon,
actually, come to think of it.
No, this goes back to Romantimes. Someone who had, you
know, a house, some space, andusually some money, would bring
together interesting people andset a topic of discussion, and
(21:43):
then the people would discussit, and people would come either
to participate or to watch, andthey would kind of have these
freewheeling debates. And peoplewould be selected, you know,
based on their knowledge orbased on their wit, or, you
know, whatever. And very in manycases, some of the really
(22:10):
important ideas in in westernpolitics were actually kind of
thrashed out in these salons,mostly in Paris and other parts
of France. And actually, infact, there's a section in my
book that talks about inAmerica, about antebellum
(22:34):
African American literarysocieties, yes, yes, yeah, where
they were figuring out the wholeabolition and thing, and how are
they going to do this, and usingthese salons as a vehicle for
teaching reading and literacyand political understanding, and
(22:55):
a lot of the ideas thatunderpinned the American
Revolution and the FrenchRevolution were formed in the
salons of Paris. A lot of as yousay, abolitionist ideas were
formed in these African Americanantebellum societies. They're
(23:16):
just really important. AfterWorld War One, they kind of fell
out of fashion, but there were acouple that that came back.
There was one in the 1920s itwas called the House of truth,
and it involved some low levelfunctionaries, government
(23:37):
functionaries in Washington, DC,but they managed. I mean, just
about everybody who was anybodyended up passing through that
salon. I mean, you know, likejudge Brandeis and all these
other people, including the guy,one of the founding members, and
I can't remember his name, buthe was the sculptor who
conceived and carved MountRushmore, okay, that guy.
TD Flenaugh (24:01):
That's interesting.
That's something that peopleshould bring back. It sounds
like, well, I don't know. I'mthinking like podcasts are a new
salon then, right? Becausepeople are just like, discussing
their ideas. And there'sdefinitely groups of people.
Sometimes there's just two,sometimes there's just one, but
it gets discussion going, rightabout different things happening
(24:23):
in our society. So maybe that'sour new salon. It could welcome
to the falling for learningsalon. Guys,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (24:32):
brilliant.
I love it,
TD Flenaugh (24:35):
all right, so you, can you tell us about the your
educational journey like, wheredid you go? Where did you study?
What were the subjects you werestudying? Let's learn more about
this guerilla scholarship inaction,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (24:51):
right?
Well, my now, I have to make adisclaimer here at first,
because when I started college,it was actually. Possible to get
through college without, youknow, having to put your left
kidney in the hock in order topay for it, all you know.
TD Flenaugh (25:09):
Okay, so tell us what it was though, like, what
were they, what school and what?
Like, what was that tuitionlike, right,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (25:15):
right. So I had my my first undergraduate
school was a little collegecalled Rick's College in Idaho,
and I went there to studytheater because they had a good
theater department, and I wasvery much into that sort of
thing. And I also had done alittle bit of broadcasting work,
actually, my summer job before Iwent to college, I was, I was a
(25:38):
disc jockey at a radio station,so I did that for a while.
Decided, okay, that it'sinteresting, but I'm not sure
that there's really a futurethere. I spent some time to
travel abroad, spent some timein Europe, just basically
wandering around, picked up someof the language there, came back
(26:03):
and decided I wanted, well, Iwasn't sure what I wanted to do,
but I actually managed to get, Igot a scholarship at at BYU in
Utah, okay, and I Started out inearth science, and kind of got
sidetracked, because of all ofall the subjects that I study,
(26:27):
math is kind of my white whale,you know, and I had this class
that I had to take. It wasintermediate algebra. I studied
like mad for it like crazy.
Spent hours and hours on it andgot a C and something snapped. I
dropped out of the University. Iwent back to my hometown of
(26:51):
Salem, Oregon, and I went to thecommunity college there, and I
took math classes just todemonstrate to myself whether I
really was just math stupid ornot. And I got far enough to
say, okay, I can, I can managethis. Then I went back and back
to to BYU, and I decided Ibecome very fascinated with the
(27:18):
ancient Near East, what we callthe Middle East today. Okay, and
so I and I decided, okay, I can,I can do the math, but I'm
better with languages, becausethat's in that field is very
language heavy. So I starteddoing that. Got to the end of my
bachelor's degree in NearEastern Studies. That's about
(27:41):
the time I met my spouse. We metin the library, and, yeah, there
was this cute blonde in thecorner reading Aristotle in
Greek like it was a newspaper.
And I'm like,
TD Flenaugh (27:55):
I want to get to know her. A meeting of the
minds.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (27:59):
Meeting of the minds, yep. And you know,
it's been, what, 41 years, andwe're still together. So she was
a classicist. She did well. Shealso had a degree in music, but
we, we decided to to getmarried. The one issue was, I
(28:20):
needed to get a master's degreein order to pursue a doctorate.
She already had her Master's.
She just finished it, and she'dbeen accepted with a full
scholarship to Stanford. Rightnow they Stanford said, Well,
look, we can, we can put it off,hold it off for a year. And so I
went to my advisor, and I said,Dave, his name was, was Dave
(28:42):
Montgomery, Dave, you got tohelp me. I need to get a two
year master's degree in oneyear. Can we do it? He says,
Well, we'll figure out a way todo it. So we did that. Then I
got accepted at Berkeley, so weboth were at least in the same
city, and we rival schools. Theyare Rival Schools. I know it
was, it was endless fun. I wouldwear a Stanford sweatshirt at
(29:05):
Berkeley, and she'd wearBerkeley sweatshirt at Stanford,
and just piss people off, but,but this is kind of where some
of the some of the gorilla stuffcomes in, because we were living
in very close to Stanfordcampus, and I found a way to get
into the Stanford librarybecause I didn't want to make
the hour, 45 minute commute if Ineeded to use the library
TD Flenaugh (29:30):
up there. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (29:33):
also discovered that a lot of the
things that I needed were in alibrary that belonged to a local
Catholic seminary in Menlo Parkthat most people didn't even
know was there, and got to knowthe librarian there. He was. He
was a hoot. He was, he was asouthern ordained Southern
Baptist minister who was thelibrarian at a Catholic library,
(29:56):
Catholic seminary. I don't knowhow that happened, but he was.
Great. He was, he was a lot ofhelp. The other problem too was
that it's expensive living inthe Bay Area, and it even back
then, huh? Even back then, itwas starting to get, you know,
kind of pricey. And so what wewould have to do is, after she
(30:19):
finished, after her scholarshipran out, we would trade off, she
would go to school and I wouldwork, and then after the end of
that year, I would go to schooland she would work, and we would
just kind of take thesefinancial leaves of absence.
Teamwork. Wow, yeah, but in themeantime, if I was working and
not going to school, I stillneeded to find ways to keep
(30:43):
going on my studies, right? Andthat meant that I had to either
like, approach professorsdirectly and say, you know, kind
of off the books, so to speak,and say, what can you do? You
know, help me talk to otherstudents. Find other ways to
research certain things. Theinternet was just kind of
(31:05):
becoming a thing. When I startedmy my doctoral program, there
was no such thing as as theWorld Wide Web. It hadn't been
invented yet and and in fact,Stanford still had their card
catalog in their library, right?
And they were just starting toreplace it with an electronic
catalog that we could access onour little Macintosh through a
(31:29):
300 baud modem. That was, thatwas all very, you know, war
games and stuff. So you have to,you have to get creative about
how you get information and howyou you keep track of it.
Another thing that I learned washow to, how do you how to apply
the used book market? Becausesometimes there was a book I
(31:56):
needed and I couldn't find itand or the library had it, but I
couldn't check it out because Ididn't have a current card, so
I'd have to find some way eitherto buy it or to get up through
the public library. And Idiscovered that the public
library has all kinds of stuffthat most people have no ideas
even there, but if you go andtalk to the reference librarian,
(32:21):
my God, it's just like, wow.
Where did all this come from?
Another thing I came to discoverwas government documents. The US
government is the largestpublisher of English language
materials in the world. There'slike something like 8000 new
titles that come out everymonth, and they're about
(32:43):
everything, just everything nowthat might not be as true now as
it was before, certainly notthen. But by law, every
congressional district has tohave at least one government
documents repository, and eachrepository has to have people
(33:06):
who know how to find stuff. Andvery often, you can go to a
government document source andtalk to someone there, and they
can put you in, you know, findstuff for you. Or the government
also keeps an index of experts,government experts. You can say,
(33:28):
I need to find an expert on, Idon't know, spotted owls or
something. And they can look inthis thing and say, well,
there's this wildlife biologistin the department of such and
such, and she knows everythingabout it. Here's her phone
number, you know,
TD Flenaugh (33:47):
my goodness, so there's, like, that's some new
information. Yeah, it soundslike your book is just full of
amazing strategies, resources,and that's what we're all about
here on the falling for learningpodcast,
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (34:03):
wow, this can keep you busy for a long
time. So where can we get yourbook? It is available on Amazon
at the moment. It's available inhardcover, soft cover, ebook and
audiobook. The audiobook isavailable from like six
different platforms. They'vethey've gotten that one out
(34:27):
there pretty quick. You can alsofind it through book finder.com
There will be other thingscoming on online sooner. So I'm
told the thing just waspublished on June 25 so it
hasn't been out that
TD Flenaugh (34:42):
great. All right?
And can you tell us your whatyour doctoral degree is in my
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (34:50):
doctoral degree is in Ancient Near
Eastern Studies. My primary areaof emphasis is the Hebrew Bible,
or the Old Testament. Oh, okay,Old Testament.
TD Flenaugh (35:03):
So okay, well, that's amazing. I am so glad
that you joined us today on thefalling for learning podcast.
Are there any like final thingsthat you could talk to parents
about that really helped you todevelop as a learner?
Dr. Sheldon Greaves (35:20):
Um, what really has kind of stuck with me
is that learning is fun. It is apleasure. If you're not, if
you're not enjoying it, you'renot learning. There's a there's
a quote from T H White's bookThe Once and Future King, about
(35:45):
King Arthur and all this. Andit's Merlin talking to Arthur,
and he's, I guess Arthur'shaving a rough day or something.
And Merlin says the best thingfor being sad is to learn
something that is the only thingthat never fails, and that has
(36:05):
just stuck with me. I too muchof what we try to learn is about
getting a job or gettingprestige or something like that.
Get all that learning is fun.
Doggone it, it's there's so muchfun to be had, and I worry that
we're missing
TD Flenaugh (36:26):
that. That's awesome advice. Thank you so
much. Dr Sheldon Greaves forjoining us, and for all of the
listeners and viewers out there,please do something today that
you're going that's going togive your child the competitive
advantage. Please like andsubscribe. Have a great week.
Thanks again for supporting thefalling for learning podcast.
(36:47):
New Episodes go live everySaturday at 5pm you can watch us
on youtube.com at falling forlearning or listen on all major
podcast platforms such as Apple,Google, Audible, Spotify and
much more for more resources,visit falling in love with
(37:11):
learning.com we reallyappreciate you. Have a wonderful
week.
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