Good Morning and Happy Saturday!
If this is you first time visiting The Living Pen, welcome. I am very happy you found us and even happier that you decided to spend a bit of your time with us. I hope you enjoy reading the blog.
To everyone who is a Living Pen Reader, affectionately called, LPR’s, thank you! Thank you, for joining me each week, for taking the time to comment and thank you, for your support. Now grab your favorite beverage and let’s get on with our chat.
I gave the very accommodating, very gracious and very interesting, Brenda McGill the week off. I was in fear of becoming that student that no matter how long the class is or when it is supposed to end, had just one more question!! (lol)
I am thrilled that you all have found the topic,The Art of Learning, and Brenda so interesting. Education is such an interesting topic. It is introduced to us at a very young age. For some, it’s traumatic, for others it’s exciting. It’s not a stagnate situation. With every grade advancement, the routine changes, the curriculum changes, the social environment changes, the expectations change and our feelings about it change. Education by its’ very nature leaves a lifelong impression on us. Brenda was right; learning is the art of seeing the internal gifts we have that we can share with the world.
Looking back at my conversations with Brenda, I realized how easily she lifted the doubts and the negativity anyone can collect and harbor about their education. She began with, learning is individual. She pointed out that each of us learns in a different way and shared that she did not know she was a visual learner until college. Which immediately made me think, what would school have been like, if I knew how I learned. Did anyone else wonder about that? I would love to know, so if you would like to share, leave a comment.
She helped me realize that education needs education. Nothing improves unless you find the things you are doing right and apply that effort to the things that you can do better. I also think Brenda was onto something. The biggest positive from Covid19 might just be that it gave education a chance to look itself in the mirror. It has come a long way, but like anything else, it could be upgraded and improved. Perhaps it needed to stop to get our attention. You can’t check the tires if they are always moving! Education jumped the Covid railroad track and used technology to create a new way to learn, a way that will allow more access to learning than ever before. It also gave us a chance to see the bumps and blemishes, the parts that shined and the parts that we can improve because we too, have come a long way.
Brenda also gave us a reason to reassess our feelings about learning. Her honesty about the fact that yes, it can be scary, yes, it may not be a piece of cake but it is doable, came from her experience as a student at different times in her life.
She gave us a packing list so that we can be better prepared to take an educational ride. These were practical things, things that we can do and take control of.
1. Acknowledge that we don’t know everything!
2. Make use of every Available Resource.
3. Follow through on number 2 by exploring the departments of Admissions, Advising, the Bursar, Disabilities and most importantly, the Student Success Centers.
4. Meet every individual you can at the start so that when you run into a situation, you will have someone to help you navigate it.
5. Define your goals and start slow.
6. Talk it up; remember it will change everything, including the time you give to others.
7. Spend some time discovering how you learn best so that you can do your best.
8. and my personal favorite,
“Remember you are not asking for permission but for support”
In our last chat, Brenda explains the different methods of learning. She explains that as children all of these methods are used to teach us, but we may not have been taught how to apply the methods that work best for us on activities yet to be taught. She bravely mentions that faculty can often assume these skills were learnt or should have been learned prior to enrolling in their class. She gives us an online place to go to begin our discovery of ourselves. How we learn and how we can apply it to what we want to learn. Are we brave, can we try to put our feelings about ourselves aside and visit: VARK-learn.com ?
All in all, I feel that Brenda has given any of us on the educational road an opportunity to use our language to change our thoughts: ‘it’s not easy’ but it is possible instead of ‘it’s too hard’ and it’s impossible, why try.
No matter where you are on this learning expedition, we must accept that education is not perfect and that we have a responsibility to ourselves and our children to be proactive. Perhaps that parent with a struggling child can now make a game of learning how that child learns and in turn give them the confidence they need to accomplish their future learning goals.
Maybe you are an aunt or uncle of a tween doing well in some areas and tanking in others without knowing why. You can be that voice of knowledge by letting them know that there are different ways to learn. By sending them on an adventure of discovery, you may unlock their potential.
You could be a high school student trying to navigate the social environment and the pressure of college expectations. If you are unsure, now you know what steps to take. You need to set your goals, discover how you learn and how to apply that learning method to different things and you need to become familiar with departments that can help you if you stall or get a flat. Success has a middle name and it's Responsibility.
If you are an adult, wanting that better paying job, or maybe you just discovered what you want to be when you grow up, or even if you are the adult that now has the free time to focus on something they always wanted but has doubts because it’s been a long time. Remember this: Education is like the Olympics, success is based on the time you put into the practice, practice how you learn, set goals and don’t let doubts, your own or anyone else’s stop you.
The secret is out! We are human, we have a brain, it can do amazing things once we learn how it likes to learn! Boy, I wish I knew then what I know now…
Join me next week, as I ask Brenda to take on more questions and if you have any questions you would like to ask, please ask away. We only have her for a limited time.
Blu