Are you self taught? | INFJ Forum

Are you self taught?

Gaze

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Sep 5, 2009
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Do you find that you learn better when you teach yourself an academic subject that is perceived as more easily or better learned in a classroom? Do you feel you can accomplish more as a self taught learner? How do motivation and self discipline play a role in your ability to learn on your own? What else makes self taught learning more effective or attractive? When you do you think self taught learning isn't effective? For what subjects or in what circumstances?
 
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I prefer a balance.
 
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I'm an independent learner, and self-teaching dominates. Although I have to be interested in the subject at hand, otherwise, I can 'self-learn' but I'll be in much need of external discipline such as offered by formal education, including set assignments, deadlines etc. Yet nevertheless, having a lecturer, teacher, or even a friend with whom one can glean from and bounce intellectual ideas off, serve as intellectual stimuli that helps develop my own thoughts, and prompts me to think and research on other matters seemingly not related to what is 'taught'. I agree with [MENTION=14092]Asa[/MENTION] , a balance between self-learning and other-based-learning I find to be very beneficial - one without the other inhibits learning in my view. They both have their place.
 
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I'm self taught about a few things and have learnt other subjects from and with others. I have noticed my perspective is more limited in the subjects I am self taught in. I feel this is so because I did not have the opportunity to learn from others in these areas, as a result, my perspective became self-limiting. When others are involved in the teaching and learning process a person has more opportunities to see and experience something from a variety of perspectives, thus expanding their knowledge base, which in turn expands their experience.
 
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Definitely self-taught. I learn best when I do it on my own time, without having to follow the rules and guidelines of a class based environment. There's a definite pattern in my ability to learn throughout life. Childhood and adolescence where there was only one way of learning, my grades were mediocre at best. College, where there was fewer restrictions meant better grades. Then when I changed careers to IT and studied for numerous certifications on my own, I found learning far easier and got near perfect marks on many of the exams I went for.

I do agree with people who mention that it's good to have others to bounce around ideas and gain new perspectives. But this can be achieved outside a classroom.
 
Im self taught in theatrical Brazilian waxes.
 
I have done a lot of formal education now and I definitely hate the classroom environment, it achieves nothing for me and I never want to go back there. I truly hate it and I learn much more from a book. I can (and do) achieve high distinction results at formal education, but only when I can find the internal motivation and emotional involvement to do it, otherwise I am a flat credit level student. I am a temperamentally frosty person and I find it very difficult to get along with other people in an environment that is as contrived as a classroom. I also find it totally demotivating to pillage scholarly materials for stuff I need to answer academic questions, it takes like this monumental effort and I spend the whole time struggling with concentration and yawning. It's such a different experience when I can follow my own intetests and discover things in my own time, and that's when I just get lost in learning, and I get lost in hearing what the scholar (or author or artist or whatever) has to say. If I want to achieve anything at all in the classroom I really need to work hard to get myself involved in the material.
 
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I have done a lot of formal education now and I definitely hate the classroom environment, it achieves nothing for me and I never want to go back there. I truly hate it and I learn much more from a book. I can (and do) achieve high distinction results at formal education, but only when I can find the internal motivation and emotional involvement to do it, otherwise I am a flat credit level student. I am a temperamentally frosty person and I find it very difficult to get along with other people in an environment that is as contrived as a classroom. I also find it totally demotivating to pillage scholarly materials for stuff I need to answer academic questions, it takes like this monumental effort and I spend the whole time struggling with concentration and yawning. It's such a different experience when I can follow my own intetests and discover things in my own time, and that's when I just get lost in learning, and I get lost in hearing what the scholar (or author or artist or whatever) has to say. If I want to achieve anything at all in the classroom I really need to work hard to get myself involved in the material.

But, I have done very well in a single teacher-student environment... for me it all comes down to the material... and I have usually found a classroom and jumping through the hoops to be a big distraction from that.
 
in many ways im autodidact. i taught myself history, music, politics, and a sense of humour.
school has always failed to grab my attention. when i want to, i can learn quickly, but it has to be on my own initiative.
 
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Im self taught in theatrical Brazilian waxes.

So you must be a genius in performance based bikini barbering. For the "lucky" customer, it must be a real hair razing experience. :mpoke:
 
So you must be a genius in performance based bikini barbering. For the "lucky" customer, it must be a real hair razing experience. :mpoke:

Bitches love a bedazzled bikini
 
I don't enjoy the classroom environment all that much, but I have to admit I learn faster with that kind of structure.
 
I don't enjoy the classroom environment all that much, but I have to admit I learn faster with that kind of structure.

Agree. I'd like to think I'm this wholly disciplined self taught learner, but structure helps to keep me accountable. I don't think you need a classroom to learn, but sometimes being in that environment helps because you're more engaged and learning is collaborative especially with discussion. However, I prefer learning for the sake of learning, not to simply fulfill a course requirement. When I'm motivated and organized, I can learn quite a bit on my own. But it must have a purpose or end to it. It helps to have some outcome to work towards, or else it's easy to start with great interest, but then lose it if it doesn't end in the completion of some kind of project. I'm notorious for starting things and never really finishing them. I hate that! :D What I don't like is learning in an environment that's based on how good your ideas are or based entirely around good grades, impressing the instructor, or competition of ideas. I prefer enjoyment of learning for the sake of passion and interest, so self taught is more appealing when I'm in control of the learning process and outcomes.
 
Self-taught in English in a country where English is not spoken at all so proud of it.
Although it took more than it normally takes when you attend a class and I'm still learning, but attending classes has never been an option for me, always a waste of time.
I can't focus on anything more than 30 minutes in a class and I start daydreaming.

Back when I was a teenager, I didn't know that, I didn't know people learn differently in a different pace, so I thought I was stupid, lots of bad feeling,
But then when I became an EFL teacher, I realized everyone can learn, the only thing that matters is that we all learn differently and we can learn anything- if we have the right motives- in the right conditions. :)
 
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I kinda think the environment of schools, where students are only lectured to learn, is only suitable for auditory people that is people who learn through listening.

so other types(visual and kinestetic learners) - people like us- suffer in these environment.

Schools can kill creativity after all.
 
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I prefer learning independently. I also learn a lot from conversations and picking people's brains (not literally, I am not a zombie, yet). I feel my introverted intuition guides me like a teacher. When I am motivated I am stimulated. When I am not, I am not. I am done with school. Everyone is a teacher and a student. And when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Synchronicity trumps a syllabus any day if you ask me. But everyone learns differently. I think formal education tends to be catered to people who are extroverted, left brain dominant, and not very curious or creative or subversive. Not for me. But I do like balance. A great YouTube video of a lecture can be very helpful for me as well for example. I am a proud college drop out. Just like Bill Gates. But without the billions of dollars of course.
 
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I'm a self taught musician (that's why I suck at it)
I'm a self taught philosopher (that's why I suck at it)
I'm a self taught theologian (that's why I suck at it)
I'm self taught at life (tis why me sucks a tit)
I'm a self taught dad (that's why I suck at it)
I'm a self taught swimmer (that's why I drown)
I'm a self taught me (I do that pretty decent)
I'm self taught in relationships (that's why it took me forever to get good at it)
I'm a self taught comedian (that's why I'm annoying)
I'm self taught at sex (that's why my junk hurts)
I'm self taut (that's why I'm loose as a goose) <does anyone see what I did there!? Mic drop... I'm out.

PS I really don't care for the classroom setting. I do enjoy learning about any different subjects. I usually pick up a book or thirty or research on the web. Math, English, history, etc... just bores me to tears, but I like history and science stuff in television or film form. Fin
 
I definitely am. I learn by doing and I "do" exactly when I feel like it. I wish I could go and redo elementary school science, for example, with the interests that I have acquired. Basically, my motivation is either practical (something needs fixed) or creative (I want to make _____ ) and then and only then will I read the manual, watch instructional videos or just fiddle around with things trial and error style until I've figured it out. The problem with me in school was that I had to be interested in the subject at that moment in my life in order to care about it and I hardly ever was. If I was, I'd go to the ends of the earth to research everything about that topic, that topic's brother, that topic's chemical makeup, etc etc etc. But usually what sparks my interest in a topic is an innocuous news article or something on TV and suddenly I zero in on a portion of it obsessively. I WILL find out everything there is to know about it. So yes, I am mostly self-taught.
 
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