Learning

What is learning? Why is it important?

Simply put, learning is a change that takes place because of an experience. That change could be behavior, knowledge, or experience, but something HAS to change. Hence the motivational adage, if you always do what you’ve always done (i.e. never change), then you’ll always get what you’ve always got (i.e. never learn).

A Typical College Classroom

Let me paint a picture for you. You’re in a room, listening to a professor lecture. Lecture, that’s a common word in university. You sit and take notes violently as if trying to decipher a code; the coded message is the words coming out of the professors mouth, and your brain attempts to decipher it as you give your best guess as to what the teacher could possibly test you on. Tired, hungry, and mostly bored more than anything, you continue to take meaningless notes. Your head perks up when you hear “you’ll need to know this for the test”.  Whispers enter the room, with those students not paying attention turning to their friend to ask, “What was that?” The students then robotically copy their friend’s notes in order to make sure they have that future test question at their disposal. The professor then goes off on a rant, beaming about his or her own research or digressing on a topic he or she knows a lot about. Automatically, the kids lose attention, waiting for the next time the teacher announces another test question.

This last paragraph can be summed up by this meme:

Here is a pretty neat link talking about how kids are disengaged by the current way education is run. Frankly, what the people in the documentary are saying is that the things children learn in school have little meaning to them. I’m sure you have wondered WHY you are being asked to learn something and how it relates to your future career. Yep, you’re not the only one. It’s a pretty interesting video although there are some things in it that I don’t entirely agree with. If you don’t want to watch it, here is one of the best quotes that I found from it. “Being quiet and being submissive. I think that, frankly, is the only think that is being taught right now. That’s what they’re teaching—to sit patiently and be disengaged for an hour and take it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC_T9ePzANg&feature=youtu.be


Learning

Now let’s get onto real learning. This is where it gets good. Think about the times in your life where you feel like you learned something important—perhaps even life changing. Don’t even think about reading on. Think about the circumstances that this event took place in. What helped you learn? And most importantly, what changed? Where did this take place? Regardless of where it took place, you probably had what someone I know calls an “Ah ha” moment. You suddenly realize something—whether it’s making a connection you hadn’t seen, understanding a concept that you only partially understood, or seeing someone touch another’s life, and then commit to change because of it. For me, I remember a Scout camp that I learned something really important. Yea, I know it’s hard to imagine learning something important amongst stinky sleeping bags, talking about junior high crushes, and blowing things up, but it happened, so hear me out.

As a scout troop, we went on a winter camp to some bush out in who knows where near Mountain View, AB. Lucky for us, we were satisfying our winter survival requirement and went to go make ourselves a lean-to with bow saws and twine to lash it all together. We made our shelters; ours was nothing to complain about. Luckily my friends had brought a tarp and covered the top of our shelter with it. However, the tarp didn’t cover the whole shelter, leaving a spot open for someone to sleep with the tarp not covering. I quickly volunteered, noting the clear sky above us and then went to bed.

Wet, and cold, and shivering. That’s how I remember waking up the next morning. Yes, the weather was really nice the day before for a winter camp. Above zero, in fact. But the clouds came in that night and drenched our camp, leaving me, as well as all my belongings—sleeping bag, extra clothes, food, a book—soaked to the core.

So what did I learn? To never going camping again. Seriously though, ever since then I have been prepared for the rain when going camping, knowing that I never want to relive that experience again. I heard once that necessity is the very best teacher. Sounds legit to me.

Why do we learn?

We have talked a lot about the how of learning. Now lets discuss the why. WHY DO WE LEARN?  There are probably a lot of differing views. Some would say to realize our own ignorance, to gain an appreciation for the past, or to comprehend the scientific laws that surround us. People in the education field refer to “citizenship” as the end goal for education and learning. While these answers are all good, I assert that they fall short of giving me (and others) the motivation to learn. What I believe should motivate and guide our learning is this statement made by John Milton, an English poet and literary genius of the 17th Century:

“The end of all learning is to know God and out of that knowledge to love and imitate him.”

Well folks, I think he pinned the tail on the donkey there. I can’t add too much more to that, other than why this statement rings true to me. What would learning mean if what I learned here on earth didn’t pass with me to the next life, or if my motivations to learn were to get praise, only to undergo intense criticism by my colleagues, or if I was a scholar in family life and treated my kids like crap? Learning would mean nothing. Now if you don’t believe in God, you may say this isn’t workin for me. Fine. I respect that. Still though, your motivations have to come from something bigger than yourself to last. It could be making your grandpa proud of the life you have lived, or doing extremely hard things cause you love your kids, or following the example of a good friend or role model. And yet, I still believe each of these reasons are just branches of Milton’s ideology of learning.  So if you’re uncomfortable with imitating God and loving him as your reason to learn, call it character, citizenship or what have you. Call it something.

I’ve gone way over time but want to say with one last thing. Many of you have probably saw Les Miserables over the Christmas break. Maybe you, like me, felt the power of its story line, and the ringing call for injustice to be made just by acts of mercy. In the book’s preface, Hugo reveals his motive for writing the book. It is beautiful and compelling:

“So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age — the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night — are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.”

In other words Hugo is saying that as long as earth still has pieces of hell in it, as long as human suffering exists, and as long as corrupt people and government get their way, stories like this one have to be important. Is Hugo imitating and showing love for God? Absolutely.