9 Sep 2009 What does learning mean to me?

WHAT IS LEARNING?

I believe that learning is dialogue. At the core of my education and schooling is the opportunity I’ve sought for a conversation with a text, with a teacher, with another student. Learning takes place for me when I have the opportunity to articulate what I believe or what I don’t understand but would like to know better. Learning is a springboard for discovering new ideas and fresh frontiers.

As a the fourth child of eight, my birthright afforded strategic placement to be both a consumer and a contributor to our family culture. Although no single sibling was explicitly chosen as the favorite child (“FC”) by our parents, it was well-known among the eight us that we could greatly gain favor in the eyes of my father (known as “FC-status” for the day) by asking critical, thought-provoking questions. Especially questions related to irrigation.

Last month, we went on a family adventure to Yellowstone National Park. We crossed the Great Divide three times while in the Park. Although I’m in my mid-thirties and all of us children are now well into adulthood, we still sought for opportunities to ask questions to Dad.

We pointed out interesting facts regarding Yellowstone’s history, we cited conversations held with park rangers, we rattled off informative tidbits read on signs or pamphlets around us. We amplified our opportunities to dialogue and ask questions with portable walkie-talkies that were in each of our eight vehicles.

Dad smiled as we triggered conversation with questions like “Why do you think that …” “What is the reason that …” “Why is the world …” “How is it possible that …”? We stopped occasionally to duke it out with face-to-face questioning and deep-diving dialogue. We had lengthy conversations at picnic tables and rest-stops for three straight days and nights. It was like a return to my youth. It was a bit of heaven.

Even today, we all vie for the opportunity to ask good questions to Dad. We are more aware of our surroundings. We are more conscious during road trips. We are constantly searching for opportunities to learn. All of this, because Dad, himself is a lover of learning; and, because he nurtured the value that learning gives to each of our lives.

Because of Dad, I love to learn. Learning, for me, is discovery. Learning is an opportunity to dialogue with those I love. Learning is an opportunity for me to create meaning of the world around me. Learning is the way I connect to others. Learning is the way I connect to God. Learning is the primary way I create my identity and my destiny. It is the way I pursue godliness and sense a greater purpose in the world around me.

A great deal of my professional life has been spent in facilitating, evaluating, monitoring and supporting adult literacy programs. I have confronted this question, “How do people learn best?” as well as the deeper question, “How do facilitators best help others to learn?” I have wrestled with these questions and have answered them differently at various periods of my life.

The biggest lesson I have personally learned from educational field experiences in the USA, in the UK, in the Philippines, in Nepal, in Pakistan, in India, in South Africa and Zimbabwe is this”: people learn more when they build from what they already know. And people already know a lot.

Learning takes place in many ways. Living life leads to learning. We teach and are taught by one another in daily life. To amplify the opportunities to learn, we can create forums (safe place for people to dialogue) whereby learners may gather to tether new knowledge to ideas and understandings that they already possess.

As we learn more things, we start to do things differently. We try out our ideas and we learn fundamental concepts in deeper, more meaningful ways. We learn and we do. And then we learn some more. The more we get opportunities to tether our ideas with what we’ve already proven, the more we increase our capacity to tether more knowledge. Light cleaveth unto light. Progress is accelerated and exponential.

I am grateful for the opportunities I had as a child to explore the world through dialogue. I am thankful that my father cultivated curiosity by asking me questions and by expecting me to ask them too. Although questioning alone does not translate into learning, it is the entry-point whereby I have had the whole world opened to me.

Now that I am a parent, I find myself asking my children, “Why do you think the water runs down hill?” My two sons have a natural curiosity to understand the flow of water, just like their grandfather.

Although my two-year old is still learning how to form sentences and to speak articulately, he has also mastered the art of asking “Why?”

If nothing else I teach him holds, I take comfort in the idea that he will become a good question-asker. I believe this is may be the best gift I can cultivate as he seeks learning on his own.