Self Education vs. Having a Teacher

I've always said that the strength of homeschool is the training on how to be self-taught.

There's a process to it - you don't just start doing something. To try to teach yourself something without a plan gets frustrating and counter-productive.

Fortunately, the process is relatively simple, it just takes time.

First, find a good instruction book, manual, tutorial, etc. There are a lot of good resources available for free now online. You'll probably have to dig though, because they usually don't rank high on the search engines.

Then, you repeat the following cycle until you can't stand it, then you do it some more:
A. Read the instructions or watch the videos.
B. Try to do what the instructions tell you.
C. Repeat

It works like this: The first time you read the instructions, they make no sense. This is hard, and this is where it's easy to give up. It's like reading a foreign language.
Then you try to do what the instructions said. You will fail miserably. If you're doing something physical, you may fail painfully (more on this later).
Next you go back and re-read the instructions. This time they will make more sense.
Retry the instructions - you will get a little farther before you get stuck.

When you've finished the assigned exercises, try to do something "off book" and see if it works. It won't. Go back and apply the instructions to the new attempt and try again.

When you can do that without having to refer to the instructions, you've learned what the instructions were trying to teach you.

It's a frustrating and time-consuming process, but if you learn to push through you will find it very rewarding.

So why have a teacher?

My ideal is that a good teacher will guide the student through the above process. The teacher compiles and provided the instruction materials, assigns practice that challenges the student while reinforcing existing skills, and most importantly, helps to push the student through the frustrations and keep moving forward. A good teacher makes the whole process move much faster.

When is a teacher required?

If you don't have access to a teacher, then what? History is full of famous scientists, musicians, etc. who rose to the top of their field because they were self-taught. Being self-taught give you an advantage of approaching problems in new ways because you are not limited to what had always been done before.

But there are certain instances when having a teacher is a necessity.

It depends the risk factor of what happens if you fail during the practice steps.

Teaching yourself to do origami is a low-risk activity. If you fail, the worst you may get is a paper cut. SCUBA diving on the other hand is not something you just want to "try." There's no good way to really try it without risk. An instructor provides safety while you are learning, but they don't short-circuit the process, either.
Example: you assemble your SCUBA gear according to the instructions. You will probably get something wrong. You have two ways of finding out what you missed: you can jump in the water and try the life-support equipment yourself, or the instructor can double check your setup for you and show you what you've missed.

A good instructor mitigates risk.

A controversial subject for self-teaching is martial arts. Instruction can be expensive, and there are so many different styles out there that it can be hard to find a convenient quality place to train what you want.

It's tempting to self-teach martial arts, but it has a hidden danger. If you try the moves you see from your instruction videos without a solid foundation, you will hurt yourself. Maybe not the first time, but as you try more difficult things it will happen.
It's very rare to find a black belt that hasn't had a training-related injury. Because they had oversight from an instructor, those injuries are usually minor. Trying to reach black-belt level proficiency without an instructor is almost a guarantee for significant injury. Adding weapons (especially sharp ones) increases the likelihood of injury significantly.

Once you've learned the basics (black belt or equivalent) you are now encouraged to learn from books, videos, etc. Every proficient martial artist I know is self-taught once they are past a certain level of training.

I even know incredibly proficient swordsmen who have resurrected training styles from reading old fencing manuals from the 16th century. But before they did that, they had a solid grounding from good teachers.

Dr. Shinichi Suzuki

On the other hand, one of the most popular methods of teaching the violin is the Suzuki Method, developed by Dr. Shinichi Sukuki. It's a fantastic program and one I recommend. According to his biography Dr. Shinichi Suzuki: Teaching Music from the Heart, Dr. Suzuki has access to violins when he was young, but didn't have access to a teacher. He taught himself to play by listening to classical records and playing along. After his playing caught the ear of certain people, they were able to arrange for him to receive formal instruction. By this time he had already had the basics, and he needed refinement.

This was encouraging to me because I don't have access to a violin teacher, but I have been teaching myself to play for many years. If I had the resources for formal instruction I would love it, but since I don't I make do with following Dr. Suzuki's footsteps. So far it has been frustrating but very rewarding.