Degrees of learning

To the editor:

Ron Isaac's "All's well that ends well — mostly" (The Chief, Commentary, Oct. 17) is a fine work once you read past paragraphs one through five and seven. I suspect that the theory of William Shakespeare not having written the plays credited to him as the product of educated snobs.

They would have us believe that a man with only a grammar school education could not have written in such a sophisticated and articulate manner. But according to AI Overview, scholars have dismissed these claims by citing Shakespeare's name on his plays, contemporary references to him as the author and a well-documented career as an actor and playwright.

The idea that a person's academic record is a measurement of his or her wisdom and creativity is often contradicted by reality. Many of our worst political leaders have multiple degrees. On the other hand, Woody Guthrie's education after high school was self-taught. Curtis Mayfield dropping out of high school did not stifle his genius as a composer and lyricist. Neither Bob Marley nor The Beatles possessed higher education and Bob Dylan dropped out of college.

If you can think and create, certainly the information you gain from a college education can be helpful. But if you don't have those abilities, then a degree can be nothing more than the product of memorizing information and regurgitating it on tests and term papers.

Richard Warren