There are cognitive scientists & educators who will argue up & down that you need theory before practice, that if you don't have a "foundation of knowledge" you can't do the hands on thing.

Which seems completely, wildly inaccurate based on my own experience, as well as what I've witnessed with others. In a context where learning is self-directed, theory & practice tend to go hand in hand.

As an example? Right now, I'm learning to crochet. Without my usual thrift store haunts I want to be able to make some new clothes for myself, & having something to stress focus on is calming.

I've only been doing it for a couple of days, but a good portion of those days has been sunk into hooks & yarn, my fingers stiffening up as the neat rows grow. Today I woke up thinking about crochet. I am REALLY getting into this thing.

And how am I learning? Well, I watched some YouTube videos & looked at some patterns. Mostly it seemed like sorcery, with terms & techniques I did not remotely understand.

So I found a video showing how to make the most basic dishcloth using the most basic stitch. I watched it over & over, with my fat hook & squishy yarn ball, unraveling & repeating over & over again until, a few hours later, I had a completed cloth that was only slightly crooked.

Back to the tutorials of simple crop tops I went! Now I understood over 50% of what they were talking about, maybe even 75%. I started work on a portion of a top, & while there were a couple points in the directions I didn't fully understand, I muddled on.

It seemed to be going well, until I noticed some suspicious curving where there shouldn't be curves... Ohhhh, THAT's what they meant by that point, which I definitely did not do correctly! Now I understood 90% of the tutorial, I knew what I did wrong, & how to redo correctly.

Which is where I am now. And which is a progression that will likely be familiar to most people. Theory, practice, theory, practice, back & force as you gain greater understanding & proficiency.

I could have studied a book full of crochet stitches, memorizing each one & practicing devoid of context, but that's not how most people prefer to learn most things.

Instead I picked a project I was excited about, & started working towards it, gradually building the skills I needed to complete it.

That's what I mean I when talk about how rewarding it is to learn by doing, & to learn what is relevant. That's the most engaging, exciting approach to take!

And when someone other than the learner decides instead that the theory must be taught first, before the learner is allowed to get into the messy hands on part of things, they are robbing that person of the best part of learning (struggling, playing with, trying) something new.