Learning Must Be An Active Activity

Learning Must Be An Active Activity

When the person who mows your lawn makes more money than the person who teaches your children, well … soon enough, your lawn doesn’t get mowed anymore.

What is the function of education?  Unbeknownst to what seems like many people, the actual function of education is allow any person who can get one, is to expand their world.  It is my belief that the human mind is much like a tree (the tree of knowledge – get it?).  It must grow.  IT MUST GROW.  When it can no longer grow, it begins to die.  And, anybody who lives in, or near, any kind of forest or woods, will tell you, when trees die, they go down fast.

Now manual labor is a dignified way of life, or it can be anyway.  There is nothing wrong or immoral about working with your hands and the strength of your back.  Of course not.  If you pace yourself and use your brain about whatever you are doing, if it involves keeping your heart in good shape, you will live a long time.  Working hard is not a punishment.  BUT, never loose sight of the fact that the whole show is run by the brain, which basically formulates the mind. 

I do count among my many friends, and I tend to be a gregarious and friendly guy, so I do have a lot of friends, gardeners and plumbers and others who work at fairly manual labor jobs.  The older ones do read a lot, as I do.  All this really means is that they, first of all, can read and that they have the ability to focus on something more time consuming than belching.  Secondly, it means that they can formulate an image derived from one modality to another modality.  And, to do this does require actually thought, with a touch of acquired knowledge.

And, you simply cannot acquire that type of knowledge, without being taught.  It is really not practical to expect young people to learn how to read, without being taught how it all works.  In order to accomplish that, you must have people who know how to read to teach the young ones.  Not only do these knowledgeable people have to be able to do something, they need to learn means and methods of how to teach it.   My belief is that much like Medical training, to become a Doctor, prospective teachers need to go through various rotations as assistants to those designated as Master Teachers.  And to me, no one can actually be designated as a Master Teacher until they have run a classroom for no less than 10 years.

After around ten years, students have been taught and seen every school day up until they have graduated and then gone through college, or other job training, and even begun careers.  A track record of many successful students is the greatest testimony to a teachers teaching ability.

As much as I believe in all that, from 30 years in the classroom as a teacher, there is more.  Today – in this day and age and employment market – students need to be taught that learning (the requirement of continuous learning) will be a requirement of their futures.  Somehow it has got to made clear to the young students of this time, that learning must become a goal, in and of itself.  While it is true, you can’t force the horse to drink, once you get it to water, with young human beings the message that, “If they happen upon water, it would be to their great benefit to drink it.  Since, you don’t when the next bit of water might be available.” 

They, them, as individuals just have to aggressively learn.  Actively and aggressively grab every single opportunity to add to their base of knowledge.  As automation and computers replace what is believed to be up to 80% all manual and repetitive work tasks, the only employees worth employing will these types of people.  That is the ones who want to learn and want to add to their skill set every day.  Intellectual passivity will be the kiss of employment death within a decade.

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Note: for the brave among my dear readers, I offer a new, separate but different blog:

Equations for the Joyous Mind

A study in a matter of theory and conjecture about human brain-mind development towards retaining ever increasing meta-cognitive development.  Based on Mathematics, and I refer to Base 3 Calculus. I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of people to give it a try.  But if you are in any manner open-minded and intellectually curious, the Math used is truly only a tool to condense the theory proposed. 

Just published  “Twelve Roses for Kathy – A journey on a motorcycle out of the darkness of bipolar disorder”