I’ve experienced three sides of the science of learning in all my twenty plus years as a student. The prime examples being: The formal intuitional factory style of learning, The one on one teacher and student style of learning and lastly the self-styled way of learning.

I never liked government or intuitional schools of learning. As an adolescent government schooling in general gave me a combination of mental hang-ups of utter boredom and emotional humiliation that I couldn’t learn a subject I had no interest in or was given a view point of a application of usefulness in the real world.

I have discovered over the years upon personal observation of myself that the personal application of a subject matter has to be important to me on a personal level or I can’t maintain an interest on the subject’s information. Though, I wasn’t really self-aware of this factor of my mental psyche at the time of course of early years.

Self knowledge isn’t something you can learn in a book. It’s is a time consuming discoverable science.

Though I hated governmental schooling and I did not hate learning.  In fact there was apart of me that I wanted to learn and master the subjects that were pushed on me. Who doesn’t want to fit in a cultural setting how be it a forced upon setting. I wanted to learn when I was younger was how to write however some times being at “school” got in the way of learning what I most cared about at the time because in my head writing was my future.

Both then and now I can still say writing is the subject I have the fondest affection for in it’s beauty to evoke emotion, song and meaning. On occasion, I would learn something about writing that brought me an insight to put into my tool box of the trade. Of course, I would forget the rest even though I was told it was very important for me to learn all the basics and every other tool. Whether or not I would use it in the real world or not was not told to me.

I didn’t spend long in the intuitional style of learning as a youth. I was really an idiot to this system of learning. I think in general because I didn’t want to learn to master intuitional style of learning to write or any subject that didn’t hold my mental attention. I wanted to master the elements of style that best worked for me so I could convey my own thoughts and messages to the world.

One on One instruction (Homeschool and single college classes) was a weird hit and miss for me when I was younger (Homeschool) and when I became a young adult (college). I found it useful in learning to write and play piano better. The lessons followed patterns of bite size bites of information fed to me weekly. I would given something new to master and figure out in small bits until I climbed up gradually in proficiency of mastery. This style of learning helped greatly with learning songs in music but lagged behind in advancing me in creating music of my own. But, again I took what I was given and figured out the improvisation on my own.

I learned. No. I’m continually learning writing in a self-styled way now. I read and analyzed the methods of great and poor writers every day. I’m taking bits of their styles and flows in their methods and seeing what could or not work for me by pain staking practice. I don’t take everything because what works for one writer wouldn’t work for me. Though, I have my voice I confess that I am not nor will I ever be my own autonomous man of letters. I am a combination of my western written cultural heritage and the Black writers of the 1960s. Though, I am not half as good a writer as some of the giants of the past were and are. I never wanted to be. I just wanted to write to convey as deep a feeling as the works of literature have given me.

On a whole out of the three styles of learning I rate them as such:

Government enforced learning taught me a few tools and compounded on me more tools then I needed and emotional break downs. C –

One on One learning is great for piano instruction and learning a few tools here and there for your tool box. Though to be honest every pianist I’ve had didn’t know how to improv with scales or cords to create patterns and melodies. B+

Self styled learning is hands on and how I learned to gain my own style in writing. I read a lot and got the rhythm and pose over time with practice I learned to enjoy mastering small steps at a time.  A+

This is the Inspiration for me writing this post

L. M. Parker