Redefining Education

Words Hannah George

Education is more than we think. We may have always thought that we need to go to school or to university to be ‘educated’ but have you asked yourself; what does it mean to be educated?

There is never an end to learning. With the world constantly changing and new innovations emerging from the bedrooms and garages of focused and obsessed learners, we have no choice but to expand on our knowledge or else we will be left behind with the old waves of creations that unfortunately have been labelled out of date and irrelevant, because it no longer serves its purpose of being the most effective solution to a problem.

Real education is an obsession that produces a solution to a current issue. It is not simply a by having a university degree or an apprenticeship. Below are three examples of some of the greatest inventions created by women who were obsessed with finding a solution, and who didn't go to school or university to have the status of being educated to aid them in their creations.

Hedy Lamarr - The Mother of Wifi, Bluetooth and GPS

Beauty and brains, Australian born actress invented a system for radio controlled torpedoes during world war two, for use as a secret wartime communication system that could keep the enemy from interfering with a ship’s torpedoes. That amazing idea was called frequency hopping: a way of jumping around on radio frequencies in order to avoid a third party jamming your signal. This laid the foundation for technology including GPS, Wifi and bluetooth. What is unique about her story is that she was actually she was essentially a prisoner in her own home, but her husband had many dinner parties, where he would discuss about different weapons they had and how they worked. Through this experience she gained extensive knowledge and she would stay up night after night working on this great invention.

Mary Anderson - The Creator of Windshield Wipers

Can you imagine driving a car in bad weather without windshield wipers? Until Mary Anderson thought of them, that was the only option! Anderson was a real estate developer when she had decided to visit New York City in 1902 and rode on what was called a trolley car, where the driver had to open the panes of the front window in order to see through the falling sleet. However this caused frequent traffic jams as drivers had to constantly get out of their cars to wipe their front window. Anderson thought about this problem and how drivers could clean their windshields without having to stop. She went home and sketched out a few ideas, it looked very simple but it worked. What started off as a rejected idea by car manufactures soon became an essential and standard part for all cars. As you may notice, she didn't have to go to school to study for this, she was simply determined and obsessed to finding a solution to a problem.

Marie Van Brittan Brown - The Great Inventor of the Home Security System

Have you ever been so frustrated with something, that you chose to take matters into your own hands? Born in Queens, New York City, Brown arose to take matters into her own hands because the police in her local area were slow to respond to calls in her neighbourhood, so she decided to invent a home security system with closed-circuit television. Brown was a nurse at the time, however it was the obsessive desire to find a solution to her problem that starred her in the face everyday that navigated her focus in a completely different direction.

Hannah George - Online Editor

Redefining Education

Education is more than we think. We may have always thought that we need to go to school or to university to be ‘educated’ but have you asked yourself; what does it mean to be educated?

WOTC Magazine