What do letters after my name mean? Are they a sign of perceived self importance? I suppose for some people they might be. But I tend to look at them in a different light. I believe in the value of self directed study. But when I hear someone describe himself as self-taught, it bothers me. There are a number of areas in which I have worked at gaining expertise outside of a formal learning environment. Doing so is almost always a combination of reading and dialoguing with others who are interested in the subject matter. I am not self taught in these areas, even though I have exercised significant initiative. My teachers are those who have invested time and effort in writing to pass on their knowledge, and those who share their time and ideas with me. I cannot yet put the letters RPT after my name. I hope to be able to do so in the near future. There are some other letters I can put after my name, and when and if I choose to do so, they indicate that I do not consider myself self-sufficient in knowledge, but that I have valued the input and evaluation of those more experienced than myself. I have considered it valuable to learn from them and to submit myself to their standards of evaluation, rather than simply to my own. It is obvious that one can operate a successful business without formal credentials. That fact does not make meaningless the practice of submitting my work to the evaluation of those more knowledgable than myself. It is also true that most people cannot tell the difference between someone who actually knows what he is doing, and someone who is simply following a set of step-by-step instructions created by someone else, without knowing why he is doing what he is doing. I currently tune using a set of instructions created by Robert Scott. I am grateful to him for developing the Tunelab program. It enables me to earn some income to feed my family, even though my aural skills are not yet sufficient for me to tune without the visual feedback. But the fact that I can use a tool to do a job without fully understanding it does not render real understanding meaningless. When someone says I do not need anything more than the ability to "get the job done" in order to earn income in that line of work, I won't argue. But when someone says that the standard for obtaining credentials in the field should be lowered to the extent that I don't need to know why I am doing what I am doing to hold the credentials, I must complain. If I can't thoroughly evalute a tuning with my ears alone, I should not be holding credentials. Right now the RPT designation means something. Sure, there are people that have passed the tests and quit learning, or have not demonstrated an ongoing commitment to excellence and customer service. But these are not the people that define the value of what it means to be an RPT. Let's keep pursuing a vision of excellence and of a high level of skill that is rooted in learning, preparation and understanding. Floyd Gadd, associate member Manitoba chapter
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