Is learning a way of life or is it simply an institution set in place in efforts to better insure possible future success in the form of prosperity of individuals as well as our country as a whole? I believe the mindset behind the original idea of the education system has slowly been forgotten within the past several decades. School has become more of a forced “learning” environment where students succeed not through their ability to think deeply, thoroughly, and intellectually, but through students' abilities to follow directions and simply regurgitate information. The very shell that this process inhibits has become a place filled with feelings of dread and unhappiness for many students, including myself at times.
Coming from a highly educationally involved family, I have always been surrounded by the topic -- how to manage anyone from a elementary schooler to an adult in an educational setting, how to introduce a new topic so the learning curve of the students remains the highest, how to deal with “troublemakers” -- which has forced me to ponder the system’s flaws. With a father as a retired professor and coach and a mother who used to teach and coach as well, my surroundings have always been filled with stories in the past as well as the present that, when boiled down, fall under the broad topic of, in one sense or another, “learning.”
In my opinion, I believe that there is an art to learning as well as teaching. For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to be a teacher of one sort or another. Why? I almost think this is because I simply want to open minds. I want to make a difference in a person that will stick with them as they grow older, building upon, not necessarily the “criteria” that I teach them within a classroom like setting, but the idea that I lead them to see that open their minds to a whole new part of life and way of being. When this happens, it almost feels like a transformation. I found this new light through my senior year English teacher. I believe that one must be taught to find what inhibits their being. Yes, science, math, and etc. are important, but are they ultimately just important so that one can find a job and make a living in their future? Does that, the ability to make a living, lead to happiness? Why is it that one is not taught about anything deeper in school? I, for one, want to learn about the loneliness I feel at times, the sadness that comes to me ever so often and fills my eyes with tears, the feeling of being unwanted. I want to be taught about my lifestyle.
The idea of “learning” is so often exclusively associated with school and everything that follows -- classrooms, textbooks, teachers, cliques -- but I believe that learning should be seen as a lifestyle. Learning is not simply repeating facts spoken to one and in return receiving a letter (A, B, C, D, F) to represent their work. One needs to focus in within themselves, find that of which deepens their sense of self, and let this being flourish. In essence, I believe one must implicate the notion that their lifestyle should be that of which deep learning is engulfed by them. One seems to think that they go to college to learn within the classroom, but if they are not careful they might miss the lessons in their lives that most directly occurred to change them into who they were destined to be while they were waiting to “learn” what they expected they would be taught. Because, currently, it seems to me they won’t really be taught what they, in the end, ultimately need to know and that, I believe, is in the most direct sense, the essence of an unfulfilling life.
