You need both.
Most--if not all bakeries are production based. You might be panning bread or docking bases for hours on end and not know about the whole procedure. Hotels are usually banquet based, so you might be piping out 500 choc mousses or garnishing an 800 plate dinner.
If you are lucky or have the personality of Jesus, you might get a Chef who will take you under his/her wing and explain things: Why one sweet dough needs powdered sugar and another only granulated, why you should never tour puff pastry less than 1cm thick, why some pastry creams use corn starch, some only yolks, and some flour, why you add corn syrup to sugar syrups, why mixing and resting times are so important for doughs. Why, why, why. What happens if you do this, what happens if the humidity that day goes up or down, what happens if you change brands of flour.
If you're lucky.....
But what if you aren't?
You can study books--and there are some very good ones, C.I.A. has some excellent ones-, you can watch you-tube, and there are some very good clips, but you can't ask questions, and you can't get your hands dirty and interact with someone who has done the technique a zillion times before. This is a HUGE difference.
Experience... there is no substitute. You need to repeat and repeat the technique until it becomes second nature and you have muscle memory for that technique. You need to anticipate problems with a particular technique, anticipate avoiding them, and anticipate recovering from mistakes when they happen. This is experience. Schools very rarely teach this.
Right now, get as much experience as you can, don't stop reading, don't stop asking questions, and see if you can get into culinary school or community college while still working.
Remember this:
If you have "0" working experience before attending culinary school and don't work during school, upon graduating, you will still have "0" working experience. Name of the school, name of the instructor, scores or awards achieved won't change this. This fact is not lost on any employer, they want the experience.
Hope this helps