[humanrebar]

I've had exceptional teachers and tutors at times, but I always learned best from textbooks and articles. Information density (ideas per second) in text is much higher and I can scan ahead at my own speed. And with text, I can time-shift my learning. You only get personal tutoring at certain hours and only for a limited amount of time. You can't save your tutor on your hard drive and pull it up later.

Regular evaluation and correction from a human being is useful, though, so that I don't mistakenly believe I know something before I do. But there are subjects where self-evaluation (math quizzes, small software projects) can serve the same purpose. But it certainly speeds things up to have someone set a curriculum.