Feel Free II

Buddhist monk meditating. (Photo credit: wikipedia)

By splitting my friend’s email into two parts, I hope to be able to better express my opinions on learning in general. I think of myself as an eternal student. My joy largely comes from just learning and researching topics. I have spent time learning from others, learning from trial and error and learning by myself. Each method has its benefits, but which method is the best?

People swear by the teacher-student relationship. They believe that having an in-person guide to correct you and offer insight at every step is the way to learn. Part of this is due to our public education system. From the time that we’re in preschool to the day we graduate high school or college, we are given authoritative figures who hold our hands in various methods as we learn. I agree with this approach for several reasons. Critique and accountability are required in areas such as medicine practice, law or other instances where other peoples’ lives are involved. It’s not always the case, but those are the examples that came off the top of my head. Having a teacher prevents the student from forming bad habits and persisting in mistakes.

Others love learning from the DIY method. We accomplish so much more with our time, energy and money by doing things ourselves. Why should we spend money that we don’t have to learn something that we can do just through trial and error? Why give money to people that will do a job once when you could learn to do it yourself and have a new skill? I have saved mountains of money by learning certain skills and doing my own projects. It’s not always perfect, but continued practice helps with honing your ability. Outside of attending school, most of my current skills have been self-taught and learned through experience.

What about areas such as spirituality, though? We live in a world of experts, masters, teachers and professionals. Whether it’s martial arts or meditation, we have an expert for everything. This has led to branches of the same practice, teaching slight variations or different methods to accomplish identical results. It comes down to you asking yourself how you would like to be taught. I enjoy taking things slowly without the influence of others. Learning steps, methods or having an author explain how to proceed helps me to stay focused on my own intentions. This helps me to have my own experience and not the experience someone wants me to have.

If you enjoy having a teacher guide you and give you more tips to cut down your mistakes or reach a proficient level sooner than later, then there is nothing wrong with that. Being able to accomplish any measure of skill is preferable than not having the skill to begin with. Whether it’s done with help or on your own is all up to you.

My advice to people who are curious about learning anything online or checking online schools for witchcraft and magick is the same. Always do your research, be careful about who you learn from and if it helps you reach your goals, then don’t let anything get in your way. Specifically, for my friend who emailed, I think any online school will be more beneficial than learning from negative people who wouldn’t respect a student’s willingness to learn.