Melinda Re Mid Year Reflective Paper January 26, 2000

In the portfolio autobiography I wrote at the beginning of this program I stated that I thought I would probably learn more about myself as a result of my participation in the master's program, than anything else. I think that is exactly what has happened and it's probably about time. I have always held negative thoughts about myself in relation to education. I was not a good student. I had an extremely difficult time sitting still and listening hour upon hour upon hour. I started skipping school in 1st grade and dropped out for good at the beginning of 11th grade. I earned high school credits through my job and managed to earn a B.S. by attending college on and off for 7 years.

I have a dearly held belief about myself. I have continued throughout my entire adulthood to say, "I wasn't a good student" and that has somehow become, "I'm not a good learner". I have let that belief keep me out of courses and further schooling (until now). Luckily I have a lot of interests and am a voracious reader. Those tendencies have allowed me to keep abreast of the subjects that I'm interested in. I have in reality been a very active "lifelong learner" in spite of my assumptions about my capacity to learn.

I've had another long held belief. I am a loner and learn best when I take the information that I want to learn home and read and mull it over at my own pace in my own peace. I thought that was just my hermit tendencies and not really a normal way to learn. Imagine my surprise when I read about self-directed learning and discovered there are learning theories and strategies designed for people who are in pursuit of learning without the formal institutional support or affiliation (Candy, 1991).

In spite of all these negative thoughts about education, I guess you could say I have spent my entire life deep within the halls of the field of education. Immediately following my graduation from college I worked with Head Start, the Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Food Program (WIC) (as a nutrition educator) and am just approaching the beginning of my 16th year with extension.

Through all this I have dearly held to my narrow view of education. I have let my early thoughts and experiences around education color my opinions. I never even considered thinking about it - my mind was made up. The major thing that this program has caused me to do was to think about what I think about education. By not thinking about it, I hadn't been able to come to an understanding about my relationship with education. By me not really understanding me, even though I've been in the role of an educator for many years, I really haven't understood my learners either. Maybe that's why I have always said; "I'm not a good teacher."

Webster says that learning is the acquiring of knowledge or skill. Education is defined as training, teaching, instructing or developing by formal schooling. This is way too narrow. In my mind there is an infinite way to educate and/or learn - formal schooling is maybe the least effective of those, at least for some of us. It was this narrow view of education that I had accepted.

I have viewed the value of formal education as strictly what you have to have to further your "station" in life. If you want to get a job you have to finish high school. If you want to have a career and make a decent wage you have to finish college. If you want to earn a bigger paycheck you have to get a masters. Education to me was the means to an end. It didn't seem to have any value in it's own right.

I am not the only one who thinks like this although I didn't know it until I started this program. I have had numerous conversations over the last 2 years that go remarkably like this. Friend or relative says: "What are you going to do with your masters?" I answer, "Nothing". They inevitably ask with a perplexed look on their face, "Then why are you doing it?" "Because I want to learn something new", I answer. Then there is the slow confused shaking of their head. I can almost hear their wheels spinning: "Why would a person go to all that trouble for nothing??"

One of the new things that I've learned is that I am strong in the intrapersonal learning process (Campbell, 1999). For me, education (learning) is valuable to me as it relates to personal growth and understanding, not necessarily as it relates to the knowledge of information I do not find useful.

Another of the new things that I've learned is that the education field embraces the idea of transformative learning. I did not know that. I have been a student of many "new age" teachers that have been writing and talking about transformational learning for many years. I had no idea that it was an educational theory, and had been for a long time. Patricia Cranton connected completely with me, and for the first time in my life gave name to the experience that I could only explain as a "punch in the stomach", when she writes about Mezirow's trigger event and Brookfield's disorienting dilemma that lead to a transformative learning experience (Cranton, 1994). I have had this happen to me and watched it happen to learners I was teaching, but didn't know it was discussed and described many years back.

In Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning, Jack Mezirow points out that those educators who are unfamiliar with the literature of adult education tend to use the approaches that they themselves have experienced in public schools - practices that are often dysfunctional with adults (Mezirow, 1991). I think I have been smack dab in the middle of that. My only saving grace is my intuitive way of knowing that that wouldn't work out and to strive to figure out ways of teaching that would work out.

In addition to formal teaching and learning, I believe there are many "ways of knowing" that until recently were overlooked as having value. Some might snicker at the thought, but for me handwriting analysis, palm reading, the study of the human aura and the development of intuition are valuable ways of gathering knowledge. There is knowledge of the human existence that can't be taught in the classroom. All of these ways of knowing will teach you something yet they aren't considered "educational" endeavors, at least in the traditional sense.

Some of these ways of knowing and what we think of as education may actually be in competition for a person seeking "enlightenment". In his book, The Third Millennium, Ken Carey says that in order to access universal information a person may have to release attachment to human knowledge and allow the spirit-world sensitivity to come to the forefront (Carey, 1991).

Last year as part of the coursework towards my masters, I took a course on complementary healing. In that class we studied hypnosis, acupuncture and psychic surgery as treatments for common diseases and conditions. Although that might not seem mainstream to many, the opening of the new healing clinic at the University that use these techniques, shows that just as there are many ways to learn, there are many ways to heal.

As a horribly unsuccessful student for most of my formal schooling I was thrilled to learn about multiple intelligences. I could have told you that people learn and understand things differently. One of the tricks that I have used to learn and remember information is by incorporating it into a song, a picture, or a poem (as does my daughter). This just drives my logical-mathematical son and husband batty!

But as a child I was being taught in the restricting educational programs and I thusly failed to demonstrate traditional academic intelligence exactly as described in the second edition of Teaching and Learning Through Multiple Intelligences, (Campbell, 1999).

I have known since the beginning of time that I comprehend and remember much less of what I hear than what I see or read. I have always considered that a deficit. It's so refreshing to learn that I'm just more intelligent in visual-spacial abilities. (That's been a real transformative learning experience for me!)

I found out that it is considered NORMAL to be able to learn better than someone else with the addition of music. It's always been socially accepted that people who are good at art or music have a "gift" or are "talented". But I never knew that it was an accepted learning theory that it had to with how "smart" they are (as we all are in one way or another!).

Now that I understand that this is a respected educational theory, not just something I thought about, I can include the knowledge of multiple intelligences into my professional life to help my learners succeed.

What this program has allowed me to do was to identify and examine a completely new thought system of my idea of education and learning. It has allowed me to take what I believe is the most valuable information to be used in a person's life such as meaning, relevance and purpose and mesh that with educational theory. I no longer believe that formal education is bad. It has some negative aspects, but it is not ignorant of its learners as I had thought.

I have been able to identify and examine my strengths for learning and my weaknesses without feeling like I was the one that was out of step. I'm in perfect tune with other learners like myself. Gaining confidence in my ability to learn in a more traditional setting has allowed me to open up to new ideas.

I have been able to identify and examine what helps other people learn and have their learning experience be transforming so that ultimately it has considerable value to that person's life.

Personally it has allowed me to mesh my beliefs about ways of knowing with my education on the ways of learning.

By coming to understand myself I better understand others. I think this system of examination and challenging my assumptions about myself, my education, my styles of learning and my career as an educator is what Stephen D. Brookfield describes as "critical thinking" in Developing Critical Thinkers (Brookfield, 1987). I would say I'm now on my way to exploring and imagining alternative ways of thinking. The final step will be to put my newfound beliefs into action.

Readings

Brookfield, Stephen D. (1987). Developing Critical Thinkers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Campbell, Linda, Campbell, Bruce, & Dickinson, Dee. (1999). Teaching and Learning Through Multiple Intelligences. Second Edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Candy, Philip C. (1991). Self-Direction for Lifelong Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Carey, Ken. (1991). The Third Millennium: Living in the Posthistoric World. San Francisco: HarperCollins.

Cranton, Patricia. (1994). Understanding and Prmoting Transformative Learning: A Guide for Educators of Adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Mezirow, Jack. (1991). Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000