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Comment by vinceguidry | Hacker News Reader

I don't think autodidactism can be taught. You either have it or you don't. I like to think I have it, I taught myself software development and now have a career in it despite dropping of college after a year. I'm constantly reading books and improving the quality of my thought. College was interminably boring to me, I did not consider anything I did there to be learning. That's why I dropped out.

I don't know very many people who can do this. Most people I know, once they're out of school, learning stops. It's not that they can't learn anymore, it's that the impetus to do so ceases once they're outside an environment designed to facilitate it. I, and I suspect most autodidacts, have to leave said environment before I can really get engaged.

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You might be looking at it from the wrong angle. What if we're all intrinsically autodidacts and 12-16+ years of compulsory education successfully trains that quality out of most people?

It's probably not a coincidence that those willing to go against the grain with respect to education seem to be disproportionately represented among the successful entrepreneurial class.

This entire discussion reminds me of the "mappers" vs "packers" theory. It's a bit long winded but a good read:

http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th...

> What if we're all intrinsically autodidacts and 12-16+ years of compulsory education successfully trains that quality out of most people?

It's possible that is the case. I don't think it's by any means proven. But all of the autodidacts I've ever read about, and known, myself included, managed to be able to completely ignore the effects of compulsory education and forge ahead despite active discouragement from society.

Simply removing the compulsory aspects of education is, as far as I can tell, not going to be able to create this sort of resiliency, even if it improves the ability to learn. Perhaps they won't need it, I don't know.

I don't think autodidactism can be taught.

To answer this correctly we'd have to get philosophical, which means we'd both end up correct.

Suffice to say that I believe everyone is capable of learning to become a learner. You'd be surprised at what little knowledge we're born with and what our society has created for us (so-called "constructs" in philosophy parlance). Don't discount the ability for the human mind to be taught.

> Most people I know, once they're out of school, learning stops.

AFAICT, many people learning the kinds of things I prefer to learn about when they are out of school, but they seem to continue to learn things (even if they are things that I don't value, or even things I consider to have negative value, both to the learner and to the society they are in.)

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