Ray Bradbury is widely regarded as one of the most influential and original writers of the 20th century. He wrote speculative fiction and explored technology and society in his novels and short stories. However, unlike many other acclaimed authors, he did not have a formal education beyond high school. Instead, he was a self-taught writer who learned from reading books at the library and writing every day. This essay examines how Ray Bradbury’s education, or lack thereof, shaped his literary style, vision, and career.
Primary Education
He attended Waukegan Central Elementary School. His years at Waukegan Central were troubled. Ray Bradbury developed eye problems, which was misdiagnosed as a condition that would degenerate into total blindness. It turned out to be only a severe case of near-sightedness, which was duly corrected. However, he was so terrified of losing his vision that he became withdrawn and isolated himself from his peers. This timidity attracted bullying, and this made him all the more withdrawn.
Ray Bradbury and his family moved for brief periods to Tucson, Arizona, as his father looked for jobs, but they returned to Waukegan after. While they were in Tucson, he went to Amphi Junior High School and Roskruge Junior High. The family finally settled in Los Angeles in 1934, and Bradbury enrolled in Los Angeles High School when he was fourteen years old.
High School Education
Although Bradbury got his teachers’ attention, it was not for being particularly outstanding in his studies. Actually, Ray Bradbury realized early that he learned quite poorly in classrooms and lecture halls. He was a visual learner, and he did not listen effectively in the formal classroom setting.
In Los Angeles High, Bradbury joined and was active in the school’s poetry and drama clubs. He initially wanted to be an actor, a wish that showed in his early infatuation and interest in Hollywood. However, as he advanced, he switched his primary focus to writing. Besides his occasional contributions to the school paper in school and his English classes, he was hardly noticed by his fellow students or teachers.
From the tenth grade, he took an elective course in short fiction taught by Jeanett Johnson for two years. He also took an elective class in poetry with Snow Longley Housh in his junior year. The instruction and mentorship of these teachers helped shape his early writing. They appreciated his dedication to writing, but his work had problems, and he took up more of their available time. His work suffered from a weakness in grammar and syntax, and he struggled to pass eleventh-grade English, and even needed to take remedial grammar classes in his senior year.
He took a class in Astronomy in his senior year that provided him with an understanding of the solar system and outer space. While Bradbury was a dutiful student and understood the literary aspects of astronomy, he did not quite grasp the mathematical aspects of the course and had to drop it. Science and mathematics were never his strong suit, and Bradbury used science only as background in his fiction. The scientific details of the ideas he came up with did not interest him, only the implications. This course struck off Ray Bradbury’s enduring interest in and fascination for space exploration and the possibility of extra-terrestrial civilizations that were to pervade his work in the future.
Use of the Library As A School
Ray Bradbury did not attend college. His parents could not afford it, but this was no obstacle to his writing. He even believes college is unnecessary for a writer’s career. “You can’t learn to write in college,” he said in an interview with The Paris Review. “It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do—and they don’t.”
The resource that Ray Bradbury relied on to continue his education was the library.
In Waukegan, there were two bookstores near his house, but he could not afford to buy the books he wished to read on his father’s meager income. This meant that the public library became his primary source of reading material. He visited the Carnegie Library in Waukegan frequently and regularly, and spent so much time there.
Of libraries, Bradbury said:
Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.
His excursions to the library, a schedule as regular as any school, he considers to be his main education, and he maintained this regimen for years. At a point in his life, he took out ten books a week from the library, totaling hundreds of reads yearly. Bradbury referred to himself as “library educated,” and in gratitude and recognition, he was a lifelong and ardent supporter of libraries, speaking at over 200 libraries in California.
