Thread by @IntuitMachine

What I find very weird is that people are surprised with the notion that someone taught himself a skill. As if a teacher was absolutely necessary to learn anything. As if you can't learn anything by reading and experimenting by yourself.

"Wow, he's self-taught, he must be extremely gifted!" Are people, in general, incapable of learning anything without a teacher?

But to be perfectly fair, I'm in awe with kids who self teach themselves how to play music. I don't think I have the passion to do that! So I suspect this self-taught thing has everything to do with passion and talent.

The two things I'm horrible at are playing music and speaking a foreign language. My brain just isn't wired to have the passion to exert effort in these two skills. You have to be pre-wired to self-teach yourself.

As an example, my son can't draw a damn thing. But his siblings have are really good at drawing. They are all at a high proficiency level playing music. But they naturally enjoyed playing an instrument. When I was young, I felt it was like a chore. A natural inclination is key.

But one can never surpass having a natural inclination and having a good teacher. Having the latter is absolutely precious because so few have that privilege.

I don't think anyone can learn how to play a sport well without having good coaches. Talent can only take you so far. I don't think anyone will disagree with this. But what is strange is that we ignore the importance of good coaches wrt to academic fields.

Has anyone had an experience with a good academic coach? What was their method? What did you find effective? Apparently, I'm quite ignorant of this entire area because I've never had these kinds of coaches.

I suspect the academic environment does not have incentives to have good academic coaches. There's no compensation for being a coach of a gifted academician. With sports it is different. But why can't we have academic coaches?

Given the scarcity, why can't we have AI-based academic coaches? Are the computer tools we used today in some way also a kind of academic coach? We think of them as tools just as we also think of books like they are tools. But what if we invert our perception?

We believe that we are self-taught because the tools that we have mastered become our teachers.

Cool... nice conclusion that I didn't expect.

@threadreaderapp unroll