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The responsibility for learning lies with the student
Saturday, 8 September 2007
We are all too used to having things served up for us on a silver platter these days. If our coffee order takes more than a few minutes, we feel it's unacceptable. If our train is slightly late, it ruins our day. If we have to wait more than a few seconds for a website to load, we click somewhere else.
It's no wonder that many people develop a sense of entitlement. A world has been built around us that seems ready-made to cater to our every whim. Of course, we come to expect such things.
But when it comes to learning, there's no getting around that most worthwhile skills take hard work to pick up. You have to be willing to take the frustration, the boredom and the confusion that comes with being a student. That's just the way life is.
In most areas, if you really want to improve, there really is no substitute for some kind of formal instruction. A university degree will teach you skills it would take a lifetime to learn on your own. A golf coach will do more for your swing in an hour than you'll learn on your own in twenty rounds. A piano teacher will have you playing something useful in a fraction of the time a music book will.
Yet even with the advantages that formal education provides, the responsibility for learning still lies with the student. There is no magic bullet to get around the fact that our minds and bodies take time to pick up new skills. Since you're the one with the hands of the controls of those particular instruments, you're also the one who's going to have to put in the vast majority of the effort. That's just the way it is.
If you want to pick up a new skill, be willing to put in the effort required. Give yourself every advantage with the right tools, the right teaching environment, and the right resources. But realise that the responsibility and work will ultimately rest on your shoulders. And that's the way it should be.
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