I reflected upon what teaching actually is. In just about everything in my life, the best teachers have been books. In school I can't recall any teachers who taught me anything of value. All they did was repeat the ideas which I read in books. It seems a teacher's purpose is to give tests and decide how students compare to one another. In other words - useless.
I realize that I most likely have a defect in processing the spoken word. When taking tests in school it was always a book's ideas which helped me, not the teacher's words. That the teaching profession exists is proof that the majority of people are helped by the spoken word.
To learn about film photography I did not take a class, but rather sought out the best book I could find. Without a doubt this was Ansel Adam's 3 volume series on the camera, film processing, and printing.
If I had been given a choice between reading the books, or learning directly from Adams himself, I would choose the books. Inside the books are Adams' ideas and experiences, clearly organized, the best words chosen to effectively communicate the meaning and importance of each concept -it is Adams at his very best. If I instead had to go to Adams' studio once a week for a short 30 minutes, I most likely would have received a jumbled and disorganized version of what was in the books. If Adams happened to be in a bad mood during my lesson, the ideas would have been even harder to understand. Reading 2 of the 3 volumes took 1.5 years to complete. I took it slow, and did not read the 3rd volume (printing) until my 5th year of working with photography. Had I taken 5 years of lessons I would have been less informed and gone broke.
A valuable lesson learned from my negative experiences with my two guitar teachers is that I dislike learning in the presence of another person. The one to one contact creates tension due to personality differences and different ways of thinking. Both teachers asked me to do things which I believed would not work for me. It caused friction which ended with the abortion of the lessons. If I had been learning math, I would not care how I arrived at the solution of a problem, I would do it the way it was taught with no complaint. However, when learning an art such as painting or music, the important thing is to follow one's heart and instincts. When coming to an idea in a book which I dislike, I simply ignore the suggestion and turn the page - no problems and no hurt egos. With a private teacher, any suggestion on my part that I don't like the idea will cause bad blood - The teacher is always right, and says "it's my way or the highway".
So I am now on the highway and much happier for it. I can't see myself taking private instruction again - not much fun in paying big bucks for the honor of being frustrated and poorly treated by a master guitarist.
My plan is to find the best guitar books and learn what I can from them. I received the Andreas book last week and am already learning some good things.
