I have also had the experience with infomally teaching (<i>read with a bias towards &#x27;mentor&#x27;</i>) programming to people, along with the second hand experience of knowing numerous teachers, including my father. Along with this I was unschooled from the age of eleven, and I have seen the effects of this upon the children -- most notably with a child (<i>Eleven years of age</i>) teaching themselves to read to an adult level in roughly six months -&gt; one year, simply because they were interested in a subject.<p>My example was anecdotal, however when combined with my (<i>Also anecdotal</i>) experiences concerning the education system, the second-hand experiences I noted, and the writings of Russell, Whitehead, Lockheart, and numerous others who also have expounded on the problems with overly structured teaching and similar methods, it provides <i>me</i> with enough evidence to convince me until equal evidence is provided to the contrary.<p>That is why I say it is not true -- or more accurately, that in <i>my experience</i>, it is not true. I accept that a structured environment is a requirement for <i>some people</i> to learn, but I dispute that it is a <i>hard</i> requirement, and I also dispute that it is natural for the general population to require structure to learn.