can't learn by reputation

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Does anyone else have trouble actually learning in a classroom situation? I was home-schooled since the 5th grade and had a private tutor. I had to take some sort of adult driver's ed program once because I failed my first driver's test and I was over 18 (it's a state thing). Apparently everyone does this class online because I was the ONLY one in the classroom for that class.

When I was home-schooled, there were some courses that you can't exactly teach in the house such as chemistry or dissection. My mom got me these DVD's of a biology lesson prerecorded in a real classroom of a private Christian school.

The teacher had this very pronounced Southern accent and it was actually quite hard to understand what she was even saying half of the time. Since it was prerecorded, I couldn't just ask "Miss O'Hara" if I had a question. I just had to hope one of her real students had a similar one...but most of the time, they never did. Plus the teacher's voice, was physically painful for me to listen too. I don't think it was the accent. She probably would have been painful to listen too no matter where she was from; some people just believe speaking and screeching are the same thing.

My mother wants me to take a sewing class. The place I bought my machine from supposedly offers free private lessons for life if you buy a machine from them. Nice deal, but they are always booked up....and I don't know if I'd be able to grasp what they were trying to teach me and doing the same thing over and over and over doesn't get the skill stuck in my head, it just makes me frustrated and resentful. My mother says when she took home economics in school, the first thing they did was just thread the sewing machine over and over again for the WHOLE class.

I never could learn to drive with my mom because her idea of teaching me was having me drive the same turn over and over and over. All that was teaching me was how to drive in THAT particular road and I was becoming frustrated.

I once bought an airbrush with my own money, but my parents would never let me use it because they were afraid I was going to "break" it. They even hid it from me. They said I could use it after I watched the DVD that came with it. I did watch the DVD. Several times too learned Jack from it. Than I was told to look in the paper for someone offering airbrush classes. Right.... We lived in the sticks and NO ONE was ever offering airbrush classes and if we were to look online, they wouldn't be free either. And there's a chance I wouldn't learn anything from it, especially if they just had me doing the the same thing over and over and over and over.

I will watch the occasional YouTube video on how to paint a particular thing...sometimes they help...but if I have a question I'm screwed. Most of these people do not answer their comment section. The rare times they DO answer my question, their answer is so vague it's not helpful. It's like this "How to draw an owl" meme. 1. Draw two circles. 2. Draw the rest of the owl.



Anyway, does anyone else have trouble learning when the teacher expects you to do the same thing over and over on a loop cycle or because the person who's trying to teach has a voice that is physically painful to listen too?

Yes, I have had trouble with certain teachers because I would fixate on something weird on or about them and get very distracted. As far as repetitive teaching styles, I almost prefer that because sometimes (depending on what you're learning) repetition is key. I also am repetitive by nature. That is odd that your parents bought you an airbrush set and hid it from you. I don't know where you live but since you have the internet I am sure you could find an online art teacher to teach you to airbrush.

On the voice problem, I can't help you, unless you are not white. I am white, so I could NEVER attempt the OBVIOUS, REASONABLE, and FACTUAL approach and say I can't learrn from the teacher because they either make me want to plug my ears, make me strain to figure out what they are trying to say, or they are saying it 100% WRONG! In my cases, the people are often from a non european country.

Luckily, with most AMERICAN, and BRITISH accents, I got used to them, so I generally have no problem. But TODAY, they are rarer, and people try to stay away from others, so I can imagine how it must be for YOU.

Regarding the idea of questions? Yep, I have been there and done that!

Regarding the idea of turns, etc.... You have to try DIFFERENT ones, and the US, at least, decided that they LOVED the problems the griswalds had, so they actually IMPORTED people to the US to increase unemployment and car accidents! But HEY, you can get a good laugh at what I am referring to!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TkxDa4rKnI

The only advice I can give you is basic and vague. Make sure you at plenty the night before, study early, and only have a small breakfast, if any. This should put you at about your best as far as that goes. Study with the full intent and desire to learn, and try to test yourself. That should allow you to learn about 5 times as much as you would be merely listening. The idea of the test is simply to set a goal to remember, and test what you learn, but it tends to help. FLASH CARDS, for example, often have a BUILT IN test! You TRY to recall it as hard as you can. If you do, GREAT! Either way, you turn it over to CONFIRM(or TEST) what you learned. If you didn't learn it, you now know what you must learn. There is ALSO the SRS learning system. It is a technique, that is VERY popular. It tries to basically codify what I already told you, and spaces it out, and retries, to help make SURE it sticks.

I'm sorry I can't make it much easier for you. Hopefully this helps a little.

I do not learn well if I have to do the same mindless thing over and over until I "get it right." This is what my parents did to me too. I internalized that and it has taken me decades to figure out how I learn and the patience to wait for the results to pop up. Most of my learning happens in the background of my mind. I have to do lots of different things in order to learn the basic thing.

Your parents should not take away something that is yours, whether you break it or not is irrelevant. We learn by making mistakes. Your parents probably think they are keeping you safe. Unfortunately, no one ever learned anything with being allowed the freedom to try things and, yes, make mistakes.

I'll assume you mean "by repetition," but with several other blocks as well. I recently learned that my NT dad taught my NT sister how to equal him at a card game, but he never taught me. I basically gave up on all my teachers, and just learned from books and physical experimentation. Dad's trick was memorizing the discard pile, and he had also learned the times tables up to 15 X 15, when only 12 X 12 was taught. I still do the times tables by counting in multiples and keeping track on my fingers.
As a handyman, I approach every job from basic principles. I'm not nearly as fast at plain drywall, or flooring, or other trades as a specialist, but if someone wants some unusual custom work done, I'm faster, and less likely to need a do-over. If I stay at one job long enough to get bored, I start to work out some shortcuts and get closer to pro speed. One time, I got a contract to install upholstery in an arena, not knowing that the guys who had done the first half wouldn't bid again. Working together, they had been able to do 80 seats a day. I spent the first few days making big, custom clamps so I could work alone, and did 75 going easy. When I've been working with a material every day for months, I can get it to do things few others have even heard of.
To learn by doing, you can always deconstruct trash. A broken appliance or furnishing can tell you volumes about how it was made, and what went wrong. Often enough, electric things only need a switch, cord, or plug, so your explorations can become useful and respected. Cleaning supplies, glue and paint, plus experience can turn a healthy profit buying at local garage sales and then holding your own.
However, repetition does amazing things. When I first did house wiring, I would draw a circuit diagram as I had in science class, drawing every conductor. Then, I simplified my sketches, just drawing one line between boxes, and branching it out for connections there, like the real stuff. Then, I just drew lines and boxes, knowing how to do the connections by context. Then, one day I went in and re-wired a section of offices (this was legal, as I was a volunteer) to create a conference room. When I finished, I went back to the breaker panel to turn the area on, and, as was my habit, reached in my pocket to check off all the boxes before flipping the switch. There was no sketch. I had been running wires and hooking things up all day without stopping to think. I shrugged, and turned them on. They worked.

A good memory is a key to success.

I can't do this "study" thing either. No one will explain to me what it is. They just expect me to automatically know how to do it like breathing.

And yes, my parents did take my airbrush from me even after I was the one who bought it. It wasn't a real airbrush and didn't even work that well, but still.

^^ I didn't understand "study" either. If something looked important to me, I'd think about it enough to remember it without effort. A deliberate study involves re-reading and otherwise reviewing things that don't seem important. Usually the expectation is that we need to learn more before the use of each part becomes obvious, but there is an awful lot of attention directed away from things that should be investigated, too. After successful study, you will be able to remember new things and probably see a pattern to them.

BTW, my father gave me an airbrush, but he didn't get a good compressor for it, and there were no instructions, so it never did good work. Both my parents were terrible at teaching, and the schools were not even trying to recognize individuals when I went there.

^^ Perhaps the worst example of that is math education, which has regressed steadily. Silicon took all the drudgery out of figuring interest rates, insurance risks, and other expensive decisions, so now, kids are totally discouraged from learning to structure such problems with weird arcana. I ran across a store clerk who couldn't add 10% tax even using a calculator.

People sometimes tell me that they don't need to learn even basic principles and definitions now, because they can so easily look them up. I reply that their imagination is only hooked up to their own memories.

I think part of the problem with some of the video instruction is that you're trying to learn something from a 2-D medium and apply it to a 3-D activity. I know this was a big problem for me when I was trying to learn how to knit. I watched a ton of Youtube videos but didn't "get it" until I had a live person show me how to do it.

Repetition is supposedly either 'chances' or 'routine'.
In my case, it's just 'chances' not 'routine'.

Routine turned habit won't do good for me -- I'd neglect the performance of any mindless form of repetition that way.

I'd want a just right form of chances. Chances meaning, be it from moods and states good or bad, get to find varying solutions or angles on the same problem -- having the same goal or outcomes are optional.

Repetition to routine for me means to be 'stuck'. I don't like being stuck. It's easy being stuck if one is wary of failure or has high and strict standards.
I'd rather spice something up a little, then do the problem or the goal.

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