Bastiat Free University: self-crafted, self-directed learning

Starting before kindergarten, college degrees are marketed as a way to get a better job, more income, or a promotion. Bureaucrats selling meal tickets to future bureaucrats. But college degrees are losing value as they become common and as organizations shrink with the ending of the bureaucratic age. That college degree meal ticket no longer guarantees entry to a quality meal.

It's time for some good home cooking.

Overcome limits planted by your compulsory schooling, where they raised doubts by punishing valuable mistakes. Plow under short term memory drills, and through joy of discovery, harvest the knowledge of competence in your strengths. Self-directed, life long learning, is an enjoyable way to prepare varied feasts of personal success.

At student-centric Bastiat Free University your first emphasis must be on rediscovering the joy of learning. Cultivating a love of learning is a most important action toward improving your life. "In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer

There are other goals you will want to explore at BFU and the technology experience oriented Netcohort Institute -- among them; discovering new passions, opening your mind, challenging accepted ideas, unveiling exciting opportunities.

Today BFU offers over one hundred, no charge, self pacing courses; with your help these courses will be improved and expanded. For now there is not enough support to establish a Bastiat Free University low cost degree program; but there is a growing need for cost appropriate learning.

Eventually streamed courses will be available, allowing self- tailored students to fit their personal style of learning. When the budget allows, we will also offer DVDs of a complete college curriculum for you to share with anyone. Submit assignments under this program when your degree work is complete, with a small fee for review and administration, and perhaps earn a diploma. BFU will establish a scholarship and endowment budget with your help.

You can already learn at no cost except for books and supplies - just register and follow BFU's existing classes. In fact you do not need BFU. There is a wealth of free materials and many knowledgable mentors available. Help us develop the Netcohort Institute if P2Pedu appeals to you. The future belongs to prepared (your responsibility) and adaptable (your opportunity) minds - not to mere degree holders.

BFU is here to stay, we have a long term commitment to improving higher education. Your donations help Bastiat Free University develop needed improvements. If we are not right for each other today, bookmark this page and come back in a year - we both will have changed. If you want to gain actionable knowledge - if you want to make you more valuable - investigate learning at Bastiat Free University.

Join Bastiat Free University in developing a love-of-learning platform. Bureaucratic Age, one size fits some education, belongs in the past. Use, support, and expand its replacement -- self tailored learning.

Explore natural educational models that will change lives and society - for the better.

Help yourself and others find that joy in discovery you knew before you started school.

Contribute to removing win-lose, zero sum, barbarian attitudes.

What a radical idea - going to school to learn. Do it for yourself this time.
 

College costs too much time and money. The core learning acquired by your investment in a formal college education is bureaucracy survival.

With diploma in hand a college education's advertised function can now be utilized. A college degree serves as a sales tool for imploring job interviews.


It is not wisdom, understanding, or creativity adding value to college graduates. Instead huge institutions value the active compliance demonstrated by fulfilling college graduation requirements. Submission to authority is a virtue in bureaucratic organizations - most college educated employees can be used like interchangeable machine parts.

The student-centric BFU response has been to offer internationally accessible and actionable student-directed learning for those that want to run their own lives. We exist to enhance and enable student's creative and audacious dreams.

"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it." - Albert Einstein


Bastiat Free University is proudly unaccredited and intends to remain unaccredited. Satisfying the university accreditation guilds would make us just like everyone else. We also remain outside of bureaucratic control as an educational auxiliary within an unincorporated church.

Bastiat Free University is not being built to segment and distribute information - it already exists as a catalyst to reignite your love of learning.

"You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library." - Good Will Hunting


Technology is driving the cost of most information toward zero. But somehow costs associated with a college education always seem to match available tax payer funding added to maximum student loan amounts. Education is a business with deep political connections.

Access our classes at no charge. BFU is dedicated to providing cost appropriate learning tools (diplomas and certificates not currently available) to those pursuing understanding. We will only be able to provide this service by avoiding bureaucratic entanglements.


We started free, we want to stay free, we want to help others become free.

You can be a cathedral builder. It may take generations to create a new way of relating; but those that lay the first foundation stones share a vision of the glory to come -- and work toward it.

Our efforts can have a positive impact on our own lives - and on the lives of many others.

Fund student visionaries right now with a one time gift of any amount using a credit card or PayPal -- or make a monthly $10.00 donation to provide funding for our (students, BFU, and you the investors in change) combined pursuit of educational relevance.

Make a substantial difference in both student lives and society by writing a check and following the simple instructions on the BFU college contribution Form. You will favorably effect how current students and future generations relate to our world.

For all the sad words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are these,
"It might have been!"
John Greenleaf Whittier


Unlike ignorance - an appropriate gift for improving education doesn't hurt. As we combine our gifts we become a force - a proactive force for positive change.

You can keep connected with your educational legacy by remembering Bastiat Free University in your will or trust, and as part of your overall estate plan. Anticipating your bequest's impact is a continuous opportunity to enjoy the sweet taste of giving.

Bequests and endowments can share your future estate unrestricted or may be directed to special projects such as The Netcohort Institute. Your name can be attached to a program such as the International DVD educational system mentioned at the start of this page; perpetuating your name so it will be remembered long after our brief lives have passed.

Please download and send us the college contribution Form so we can properly thank you. You can instruct us within the form as to testimonials, memorials, or other aspects of your college donation.


One student could only offer moral support - her form of a major gift is very encouraging. Marge, who lives in the Philippines, e-mailed Bastiat Free University "I believe in your cause and your vision. but right now I don't have a dollar or even a quarter to donate ... i wish you well. God bless."

For more information about supporting BFU contact me or visit the Bastiat Free University college donations page.

* I live in Southern California and would love to visit with you when you are in the area - a contact link is under my picture. I have made significant donations to BFU but that is my choice; there will be no pressure for you to donate during our first visit. Your perspective and insights will help us improve BFU. I am particularly interested in hearing your ideas for The Netcohort Institute.


If you come up with some great ideas like Ross Rayburn, I may ask you, too, to become a council member of the Bastiat Free University advisory council. The advisory council identifies opportunities and problems and then makes recommendations concerning BFU.

Bastiat Free University was born in the enthusiasm of a "can do" decade, the summer of the long Kondratieff wave. The coming winter for the world also carried the distant promise of spring.

Now that it is late fall or early winter you can feel the chill within the social mood. Skepticism is rampant, the desire for uniformity increasing. The final gasps of the bureaucratic age are heard from a factory castle with hoarfrost on the windows. The dying dotard within is seeking his legacy by rule of law; nothing must change, any extant institutions are to be considered inviolate.

The bureaucrats of the passing age are of course in agreement. Their armies promoting failing kings are marching to forestall spring offensives by new and "dangerous" ideas. A Russian winter will once again destroy the invader's arrogance, but not before great damage is wrought.


Spring is yet hidden beyond a mist shrouded valley of almost incomprehensible dimensions.

What then of Bastiat Free University. We are in the marches between the past and the future; and we are not yet fully realized. We have no authority in the strategies of conquest, we are but a slight hindrance, a small obstacle, virtually unseen from within ideological campaigns for power.

The BFU game plan, developed during the heady days of summer, was to ride out the winter storms and like wheat planted before the first freeze burst forth as an early sign of spring. Unfortunately our autumn reception has been cooler than anticipated, there has been little cultivation beyond our own efforts.

Our field is being paved with regulations supporting mere bureaucratic certification rather than quality learning; all the better for battling forces to traverse. The high guilds of educational accreditation are ensconced by their roaring fires - seeking functionaries to exalt their humility.

They have found their toadies and are sending them forth.

The war maintained by supporters of central authority is a holding action, straining to delay liberating advances. The futility of their actions will not decrease the horrible cost in lives wasted. What then is the best strategy for BFU? Do we remove ourselves from the field of battle and return in a more accommodating season?


Do we count our task as done? Still knowing the seeds we planted will sprout from fertile soil enriched by blood spilled for an ignoble cause? Do we continue in the fields during winter, or retire from battle to await the promised thaw?

The primary reason to continue is that we may help avert disaster as the new age dawns. Perhaps that is hubris, and we are better off observing and preparing.

Our shared future is an obstacle course contest between self-indulgent fools courting disaster to maintain their power; and innovation sparked by empowered individuals meshing by reputation to achieve their personal goals. We do not have to stay on their course.

"As long as we are persistent in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time." - Denis Waitley


Bastiat Free University will remain; our roots will spread, our limbs trimmed at an appropriate time. We will be ready in the distant spring to send forth new shoots and blossom with promise of the first fruits on the Netcohort.

We were planted with that intent. Bureaucratic elites may have controlled the past, failing epoch -- but the anticipated new era will belong to creative individuals.


Government dependence, elitist hierarchies, and poor management of endowments by elite universities is leading to their decay - self education, individual determination, and an ethical reputation will provide a more stable future for students.

Students like you.

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer

Chapter 2
Awakening

You awaken cursing a dream that will not fade. Your leg hurts, you must have slept poorly, perhaps that pain is what brought on the nightmare. Opening your eyes you recognize your hidden play room. Ouch!

Pain brings wakefulness, and a blur of memories. You are weak. A loss of blood. Only your instructor caused a serious injury, a stab in the left leg. The other battles were quick and decisive. Your disloyal former soldiers seeing your blood, did not anticipate your aggressive charges ignoring their swinging pikes and swords, plunging inside their paths. You fought past your room, then, in a moment of calm backtracked to it.

As a child you had found the hidden room and passage and told no one of it. Entering often, usually late at night, you had prepared it as a place to relax away from court pressures. Clearing the spiderwebs and rats nests was worth the effort. Equipping it with little necessities and instruments of play and war had been a game. (Too bad you had not experienced enough war to see a need for medical supplies). Tracing the passageway you found its detailed stonework ending thousands of yards away against a solid wall with an uncarved pivot stone. With cautious effort you moved the stone just enough to see past its bulk. You were on a cliff face above an arroyo, well outside the castle grounds. The child in you thrilled at the secret. The huntress taught you rabbit nests have at least two exits. Now so do you.

You washed your wounds with whiskey and bound the stabbing with strips torn from a stored blanket. A few bites of sausage, the inside of a round bread with hardened crust, a sip of wine. You pray. You pass out.

Now fully awake but still woozy you consider your position. The numbers of dead in the hallway will suggest you had help, help that spirited you away to safety. The search will have spread beyond the castle environs, and been enlarged into a nationwide hunt. Much will depend on how long you were unconscious. It was obviously long enough to regret not having a chamber pot available. Hurriedly you change the dressing on your leg then drag yourself far along the passage to seek relief, don't want that stuff close.

More wound cleansing with whiskey. It's good you don't like it and have saved any gifted you. Soldiers have told you wine isn't strong enough to cleanse a wound, and even seems to encourage rot. Wine sips help the pain; so you drink a little. Wouldn't do to cloud your reasoning now. Pity you did not store more water. You saw flowing water at the bottom of the arroyo.

A breakfast of dried meats, dried fruit, and way bread have you feeling better. Taking stock of your provisions, a weeks worth at most. Your candles will last a bit longer than that, you don't even know if it's night or day. You don't want to start on the trail empty handed, after two more meals you will pack and head to the pivot rock to await nightfall.

For now, you feel a need to sleep.

After discovery of the passage you had expanded your own education. Taking the court geologist, biologist, engineer or other expert along; you and your bodyguards started traveling the kingdom. Soon you had found the arroyo, but deferred examination until later. As your research expanded, an occasional venture back toward the escape route provided additional information.

You have a plan.

There is an old man named Stanley, a philosopher of inquisitive mind, that lives alone in the forest. For a time you had apprenticed yourself to him. It was thing of gossip, royalty as a farmer's apprentice. You learned much. He had improved the countries food supply, better fruits, grains, vegetables. Even livestock had improved under his strange breeding controls. He had also melded metals together to make newer, stronger tools and weapons. What was most important, he thought rather than followed.

The treason of the weapons master was no sudden thing, the strange deaths of friends and family are now explained. From old Stanley you will seek counsel. His wisdom is where you must start your quest to avenge your family and win back your kingdom. He can help you be a better ruler. Slowly and carefully you must make your way to his cottage. There will be a time for speed, but now waisted time favors your escape, removes the urgency from any pursuers. Other issues must be allowed to crowd your memory from treacherous enemy considerations.

That and you must allow yourself to reach adulthood at fifteen. Prior to then the people would want you to have a regent. To survive you must never again allow someone else to rule your life, make decisions only you should decide. Think - don't follow.

Chapter 3
Seeking Wisdom

Traveling alone and injured is a miserable thing. Some minstrel may eventually make it a glorious adventure. History will sanitize the pain, fear, and doubt.

After a week of travel, you're feeling better. Thanks to Stanley, the botanist, and others you have not starved. Even with produce harvested from the forest, your provisions are gone. You've arrived.

Stanley's house appears deserted, the roof burned, the gardens trampled my horses and men. By the corner of the cottage you sense more than see movement. You breath quietly and slowly, perhaps it is Stanley returned. You move not, hoping to avoid being sensed yourself. The figure in the shadows is too large to be Stanley.

Two peasants exit the house carrying the standard tool of woodsmen, an axe with a handle. Axes are subtable to all sorts of tasks, including as a cane. The one from the shadow uses his axe for support, favoring his left side. The three glance about, then join at the far edge of the clearing.

These are not farmers or woodsmen. They may wear peasant cloaks, but the forms beneath are too bulky. They wear armor. You recognize one, even with a beard, it is Sargent Bob. Sargent Bob had been part of your fathers royal guard, until disgraced at allowing the assassin to succeed. You have not seen him since before the King's funeral.

Those with Bob seem familiar, but not from close association. Your decision made, you step into the clearing.

Sargent Bob drops his ax and steps forward, glancing at the forest as he pulls a sword from beneath his cloak. The other two retain their axes, and split to the sides. Suddenly Bob looks at you, cries out, and drops to his left knee bowing his head. The other two glance from him to you, look at you again, then follow Bob to their knees.

"Arise"

"Your majesty."

"How did you survive?"

"Once we learned of your escape we fought our way from the castle to join you. There were at least three score of us when we sought to follow, of those only us and four heavily injured remain, the others are in our camp. We will join with your troops if you will have us."

Sad at their losses but buoyed by their gallantry you respond. "You are my troops, there are no others."

"All those that aided your escape have died?"

"I had no aid, but was lucky to only face one attacker at a time, starting with the weapons master."

"Alone. It is assumed he killed at least three before he died. He was the greatest known swordsman."

"His strategy was excellent, his sword play unexcelled, but his tactics were based on false assumptions. I bested him ere he learned his error. He cautiously thrust low line to weaken me with a wound and succeeded, I ignored his testing thrust and aimed my rapier through his heart and also succeeded."

"You are wounded Your Majesty? We have some medicine."

"let us go to your camp. You were wise not to build it too close to here." As he leads the other two follow you.

In the camp the seriously wounded seek to rise and bow, even the one missing his foot. You stop them, then take time to visit each one before you take treatment yourself.

"Sargent, we can not keep up a royal image, we must adapt before we reach society. I will be a merchant's child. You are my parent's remaining mercenaries after our caravan was attacked by King Joseph's soldiers. Call me Sean, I shall call you by your first names also. Formality must end."

"It will be difficult for us to adjust."

"Understood. Any small formalities will appear but tokens of respect, but 'Your Majesty' can't be allowed escape your lips."

"Very well . . . Sean." We both laugh.

"Now Bob, I have some questions. First, how long has it been since we were attacked."

"Eleven and a half days total."

"Do you know what happened to Stanley?"

"There was blood in the cottage, not a lot. It appeared he was not tortured to reveal hidden secrets, so someone wanted him whole. The furniture was strewn as if by a hurried search, but not enough to suggest particular valuables were sought."

"Good. If we learn more we will try to help him, he is a good man and will also aid our nation's recovery if we survive."

"You have a plan?"

"The start of one, first to head for the mountains and acquire steeps ponies. We will adapt as new facts emerge. Make sure your fellow mercenaries are not shy about sharing ideas. You fighters have far more experience than myself. Tomorrow we will cross the border and leave our severely injured at the mercenary's guild. Tonight I must enter Stanley's cottage alone. I have a bow hidden there that may prove valuable, and valuables may still be there that we will need. Perhaps Stanley has left me a message in a hidden place."

"Understood, we will stand guard at the forests edge."

"How are we fixed for weapons?"

"We need well used but not royal swords for the severely injured, at the mercenary's guild they will be required for entrance. A crossbow or two will make both defense and ambush easier, and a large supply of bolts."

"We will purchase armaments in another village before we visit the guild. I have never needed to spend money gifted me at celebrations, now it will have a use."

You be continuing . . .
This is open content -- use it as you will, finish it as you wish. - Allan R. Wallace

return to top of page.

*Buy BFU Swag* ;-}

Direct income from my lenses goes to micro-finance solutions for world poverty provided by the Grameen Foundation. The Grameen Foundation is creating a rising tide of positive influence upon our world. Help decrease poverty, by enabling the poor to support themselves.



Will YOUR life be based on what you want to use it to accomplish, or by random urges of what you want to do?