The Importance of Teaching Yourself

Why Teaching Yourself Matters

In high school, it's normal to rely heavily on your teachers. But what if your teachers aren't always great, or you don’t have access to the best resources? How much would that affect your grades and your ATAR?

Good teachers and resources definitely help, but at the end of the day, your learning comes down to you. You can't always control your external environment, but you can control your internal one, you can control how you learn. This is why being able to teach yourself is so important.

A Skill for Life

Learning to teach yourself isn't just important for high school but for university, your career, and beyond. You'll have many teachers and mentors throughout life, but they won't always be there for every subject or chapter. The one person you can always rely on is yourself. You can always rely on teaching yourself.

When you know how to teach yourself, you become independent. You get better and quicker at learning new things because you're always refining your approach and improving your own skills. You literally learn how you learn.

Teaching Yourself Works Insanely Well

When I was in high school, my goal was to achieve a 99+ ATAR, which meant being in the top 1% of students. Aiming to be in the top 1% of students means that I had to be better than 99% of students. To reach this, I knew I had to do things differently.

During the December-January holidays before grade 12, I taught myself the whole year 12 math syllabus and half of the chemistry course. When Day 1 of Term 1 started, I was already starting practice exams, while my classmates were just beginning to learn the topics in class. By the end of the year, I achieved an ATAR of 99.45 with Math and Chemistry being my highest results of 98% and 99%, respectively.

How are you going to compete with that person? That is what you are capable of. I've done it, I've seen other students do it, we've taught many other students to do it. That is who you can become very easily.

But this isn't about competing against others—it's about realising your own potential. Teaching yourself allows you to reach levels you might never have thought possible.

Imagine Your Future Self

Think about yourself in the future, capable of tackling an entire university semester's worth of work in just a few weeks or quickly picking up new skills whenever needed. The biggest difference between that future version of you and who you are now is the ability to teach yourself.

You already have everything you need inside you to achieve amazing results. Teaching yourself is how you unlock that potential and achieve things beyond what you think is possible. Learning is what will set you apart in this life.

You're Not Alone

If you're unsure how to teach yourself, you don't have to do it alone. We have your back! In the Student Evolution program, we have a whole section dedicated to guiding you on how to effectively teach yourself. With systems and clear strategies, you'll learn to become a strong, independent learner for school, uni, and life.