Everything a person knows was, at one point, learned. Understanding this was one of the most impactful realizations in my perception of the world. There are fundamental instincts and processes that connect all humans (facial recognition and emotions, for example) but, apart from a small group of intuitive instincts, people must learn everything. More specifically, they must be taught.
Instruction comes in three primary forms: institutional learning, self-learning, and experiential learning. The form that most occupies the modern consciousness, and has unbalanced authority, is institutional learning. This is the school system, formal programs, university— anywhere that follows the familiar structure of a teacher at the front of the room who solely determines curriculum and spends each session lecturing. American society tends to see this style of learning as the purest and most effective, which in turn gives it the most authority as our default understanding of how learning should take place.
The reality, though, is that institutional learning in its current form often fails students. School systems send students off into the world at 18 or 22 and into the job market where they sometimes fill jobs in their desired field, but frequently land in entry level positions, far from where they want to be. After university, where I graduated with honors with a Music Education degree, I landed in a call center for multiple years. This reality is pervasive and is a product of the ineffective systems in place for career placement, interviews, labor in general, and institutional learning.
An increased emphasis, then, must be placed on the other two categories. Autodidacticism describes someone who is self-taught, whether through books or videos or practical experience. The goal of institutional education should be to provide tools for someone to become autodidactic, giving students the agency to learn on their own.
Self-learning is maligned in many fields, with undue authority being given to a piece of paper rather than the skills themselves. Credentialing serves both a helpful and a harmful function: that “piece of paper” displays understanding of content knowledge, which is key in any field, but it unfairly weighs the scales toward those who were able to go to university and get that evidence. Not everyone has the same access to that formal credentialing for a variety of reasons, often outside of their control (ballooning higher education prices and inequitable systems of funding for public schools, to name a few).
But increasingly, people have access to a variety of untraditional avenues of knowledge, thanks to the internet. You can find books, videos, social media posts, lectures, study groups, workshops— an unlimited amount of knowledge through limitless means. In many cases, it just takes access and time to learn and develop new skills.
There are intuitive limits to this— would you want a doctor who taught themselves through YouTube videos? Likely not. But there is access in many fields that is gatekept by the same reasoning when the stakes are much lower and the skills are much more accessible. This, coupled with the emphasis on formal credentialing, can result in imposter syndrome for those trying to do it on their own.
People who struggle with imposter syndrome believe that they are undeserving of their achievements and the high esteem in which they are, in fact, generally held. They feel that they aren’t as competent or intelligent as others might think—and that soon enough, people will discover the truth about them.
I sometimes feel like an imposter writing single-page articles about philosophy, psychology and self-help, but I have put time into dozens of books and countless articles to learn and apply understanding in my life that could be helpful insight to someone else. Similarly, I have a music composer friend who has never formally studied composition. He experiences imposter syndrome in the same way that I do, even though he has spent years combing through music theory books, composing pieces of various styles and lengths, asking for feedback and honing his craft. I even debuted a piece of his with a choir that I directed, yet the nagging feeling that it is all sham persists.
Both of us demonstrate the problem with institutional learning as the golden standard— it creates a false dichotomy between those with credentials and those without.
The reality of human experience is that informal, self-promoted learning happens every day. Everything you know has been taught to you, whether by a teacher or a book or experience. The most effective teacher rests in the praxis between self-learning and experiential learning: learning, doing, reflecting, repeating. Embrace self-learning and give credit to those who begin long journeys alone.
There are no imposters, just those who have taken different paths.
Edited by Jeremy Harr and Abigail McKay Cherry
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It’s a pity that those who have better knowledge and higher skills experience imposter syndrome when the dominant social, cultural or group discourse agrees with the imposition of “professional” monopoly by monopolists wishing to monetise their form of knowledge (to take a cynical view) or do-gooders wishing the best for everyone (to take a kinder view). A way out is for the imposter to refuse the dominant discourse and come up with the his/her own frame of reference as to qualification criteria for a certain set of knowledge and skills.
On another note, I like how you suggest the two factored set of criteria to make a preference between institutional learning and autodidacticism. One: what is at stake. Two: accessibility of the knowledge/skill. On the one hand, high stakes (Maslow basest survival level) and difficult accessibility could mean that institutional learning may be a superior learning mode. On the other hand, low stakes and easier accessibility means self-help may be superior. But I have assumed that a self motivated person would prefer autodidacticism over institutional learning. I suppose autodidacticism includes choosing or including institutional learning. I may have confounded motivation with the acquisition of knowledge/skills. This ambulation is probably fueled by a personal belief that I would prefer to be treated by or interact with a person on a subject matter in which that person is passionate about, rather than a person who is not really interested in the knowledge/skills per se, but as a means to make more money, or just going through the motions that that is what society, community or family requires.
Honestly, this piece was the most relatable for me so far. No imposter, Noah. You are the real deal.