Do you read or bleed through experience?

My 15-year old son has been passionate about mowing the grass ever since he got a plastic mower at 2 years old and would follow me around the lawn. He mows for me now, and I see he's very quick to notice what I do and copy exactly. He's learned what he knows from experience and watching. He's a true bleeder. A bleeder is someone who has learned the hard way, through experience, as in someone who gets their knees skinned trying to learn, no book knowledge or classroom training at all. As a bleeder he's show great promise, but it is very obvious he doesn't understand why he's doing what he's doing. He can't easily extend his knowledge to new situations. He's very limited. He has more passion than most and works very hard, but like most bleeders, he'll need help if he's going to get much better. We all know the readers in life. The people with a lot of training and little to no experience. They are highly confident in their schooling and may have something to contribute, but more often than not, they'll need some time in the job to be of much use. This is very common today in the technology fields with the rush to certifications. These certifications are a great way to document your achievement, but a test is a test and not the real world. Don’t misunderstand. I take certifications too. They are a good thing, just don’t judge someone on certifications alone. The key is to be both a reader and a bleeder. You must apply what you have learned, and you must examine what you practice. The best technical people I've known are very experienced and still go to training all the time. I walked into a help-desk area once where the people were very cold and unfriendly. I asked my friend what was going on, and he told me they had just found out their jobs had been eliminated. He said they had been in those jobs for 20+ years. While it was very sad that anyone would be surprised with a life-challenge like unemployment, I couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't learned any new skills in all the time at the help-desk. You must read and bleed, never let up.