No. You Didn't Teach Yourself.

You didn’t “teach yourself.” You were a responsible learner who achieved success by doing the work - although it may have been outside of a classroom.

None of us truly “teach ourselves” because all knowledge comes from our interactions with knowledge outside of ourselves. If we’re not in a classroom expecting knowledge to be poured into our brains, we’re out in the world reading, watching, listening - learning.

How did you “teach yourself”?

<<Oh, I read this book and practiced>>

So, you learned from the author of the book?

<<————>>

When we “teach ourselves,” what we’re really doing is the work we should also be doing when we take a class - the work our teachers have begrudgingly minimized over the decades to maintain their jobs and coincidentally pass students on with a false sense of knowledge. But what else are we to do when our students come to class expecting to be taught rather than prepared to learn?

So we “teach.”

And so teaching becomes a series of strategies that are nothing more robotic techniques - that very few students are bold enough to transform into knowledge. These students are said to “teach themselves” - to go above and beyond - to acquire the knowledge they would have - they should have - had it not been diluted by the need to “teach.”

Normal is redefined.

Teaching is redefined.

It’s no longer expected to be learner when one has a teacher.

That’s not normal.

That’s not teaching.

That’s a self-taught student.