Self-Taught Skills?

Post Reply New Topic

I can identify with this. My reading ability was far behind that of my peers' until the second grade when I began reading constantly having learned that the best places to get information were books. After some tests and evaluations it was then determined that I had the highest reading comprehension level of any student on campus. This happened once again in fourth grade, then during middle school.

I claim to be self educated because 99% of what I knew as a kid I learned outside of the school classroom. I taught myself how to program microcontrollers in C and assembly language when I was a young teenager. At the time I must have known over half of the material in the electronics A Level. When I was bored stiff having to learn the basics of M$ Word and Excel in ICT lessons at primary school I was programming at home and I even installed and configured Linux without any help. After I was expelled from school in Y8 I become home educated so that I could spend time learning about what interested me.

Everything I can do well, I taught myself to do. In school I was more or less the same ability level at every subject across the board - good, but not exceptional. I think this is due to the fact that the teaching methods and teaching environment never agreed with me, and so I was only able to reach a certain level of achievement. I learn much better when I'm learning something I have chosen myself under my own direction.

Most practical and social things I am completely awful at, as well as anything requiring good gross motor control (sports, for example). However, I have taught myself a lot of art techniques, software programs, emotional management techniques, mediation, and a few other things, all of which I excel at. I am quite slow to learn things, which is a disadvantage, but I learn things to enormous depth, which is an advantage over others once some time and momentum to the skill has built.

I have a long list of self taught skills.
My favorite are those around people - politics and business, and technical (electronic repair, programming, web page building, ie)

Some of the hard ones it just came without any books or help. Some, like computer languages, took books. Politics and business related skill I seem to pick up from watching others, but have my own beliefs and style. In my early 20's I put on a real show with both... Now, I keep my interests to things that do not attract so much attention...

For fun, I try to see what my limits are in psychical skills. They can be easy, like figure skating and take time learning like survival outdoor living. Funny how I can pick up figure skating when I SUCK at all high school sports. I did learn to run, but it took a few years to build up where I could run 7 miles or 3 long stride run. Those that take autistic mental power are, of course, usually autistically easy.

I have tried teaching myself to play instruments and art, but those are did not develop and I gave up after a few years of trying. Although I love music and art.

Language, ie writing and sometimes speaking are very slow developing and only keep trying because of need.

I have the hardest time studying for tests or taking classroom study. I gave up long ago on collage.