Self-Teaching Part 1 – Introduction

January 4, 2010 ∞ Self-Teaching ∞ Fiona Canteberry

Part 1 of 4 of Why and How I Teach Myself

I was homeschooled by my dad until the end of the sixth grade. He did a decent job; I learned to read early and was average in arithmetic. But around the time I was supposed to enter seventh grade, both my parents started online businesses and were forced to devote nearly all their time to building and maintaining their future internet empires. As a starry-eyed consolation typical of the late nineties, they offered their AOL connection several times a day (plus weekly trips to the library) to continue my education on my own.

However, I hadn’t yet learned how to teach myself. As a result, for the first year or two, I did little besides play Flash games and read novels. Since we lived thirty miles from the nearest town and only visited once a week for a grocery run, I never socialized until I was fifteen or so and discovered IRC.

Around the time I would have been starting high school, I looked back and saw that I had not only wasted time better spent learning new things, I had actually slipped back a grade or two. I resolved to educate myself systematically. And so began a painful process; three times a year (in August when the school year started; in December around Christmas break; in May at the beginning of summer break), I would devise a new, final, foolproof system in which to teach myself.

And I’m pretty sure I tried everything. I scoured the internet for free courses, but back then there weren’t nearly the offering there is now. I bought folders and notebooks at the annual school supply sales at Walmart (to this day, 10¢ notebooks displays bring a wave of painful nostalgia). In total, I constructed twenty different daily/weekly schedules of ‘classes’ that ranged from everything from reading by myself, trying to get my brother to study things with me, writing self-assigned ‘homework’, and so on.

But every time, usually with less than two days of success, my plans would fall apart. I knew little about didaction; for that matter, I wasn’t very good at sticking to anything for more than a day or two. My parents and brother were also at fault; the former sometimes tried to take over or discourage my efforts, while the latter refused to take part and ridiculed my goals.

There’s a magic word: goals. What was I after? I couldn’t have told you, really. I guess an important facet of my obsession was to attain a feeling of progression. When I was a kid, Dad would have me do math problems, other exercises, and then we’d sit down and watch a Disney movie (one of my most vivid early childhood memories is of refusing to do my math problems and hence forfeiting the chance to watch Snow White for the first time).

As an adult, I finally have the tools and money that might have helped me in those frustrated years. However, those feelings of inadequacy and frustration remain. There’s a reason why, years ago, I named my blog ‘The Homework Never Ends’, and not just because of Yu Yu Hakusho. I was never assigned homework, yet I always feel like there’s some waiting to be done. It never ends.

I need to start from the beginning. I’ve been developing an autodidactic process all these years; and with each incarnation, I was testing new ideas and discarding old, useless baggage to eventually hone this process to a useful, beautiful construct. In this series, I’m going to formally outline it.