Shower Thoughts II

Have you ever thought about the meaning behind being “Self Taught”? I was thinking about it in the shower the other day and came up with some interesting points.

Most people would assume if you are learning by yourself without the aid of a teacher that you are essentially teaching yourself – so, self-taught. But what are you using to teach yourself? Books? Audio files? These are resources that have been created by other people. So you are, in fact, being taught by someone else indirectly.

Then I thought about the methodology. Technically, in a class – you watch and listen to the teacher. Many classes have little interactivity, limiting your exposure to that which, essentially is the same as a book. So, would attending a class be counted as an effort on your behalf to further your knowledge? Would that be counted as being self-taught? Where do you draw the line?

Being able to learn something by yourself without any interaction with another human being, or work created by one would be the most strict definition of being self-taught, but would that be possible? Everything you know, you owe to some interaction with someone else.

To most people the idea of being self-taught most likely involves reading books and self-study. Obviously everyone will have their own opinion but in the end it all comes down to semantics.