Etikettarkiv: learning

7/24 – Learning is da shit!

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Svara

My daughter told me over dinner the other night, that a lot of her friend’s parents are pushing them hard for good grades, using threats of not getting to do or have stuff they want and so on. So when she said ”I am so happy you don’t push me that way. I know you are happy if I do my best, and learn as much as I can, regardless of the grade I get”. standard

So in a sense, I’ve been striving towards this family standard that Seth spoke about, quite a few years by now.

I asked my daughter: If you would get top grades but not learn a lot, or not so good grades but learn a lot, which do you think I’d opt for? She replied immediately, picking the latter choice. And she’s right. Learning is much more important for me than grades. Grades might (and should!) be a reflection of how much and well you learn, but really, I don’t think that’s how they work at all. You can learn an astonishing amount of stuff, and still get a low grade. It all depends upon your starting point, doesn’t it? Unfortunately the effort put into learning isn’t taken into consideration in grades.

Asking for, and praising, top grades, might be a strategy that backfires on you, as a parent. You run the risk of promoting external motivational factors, rather than encourage inner motivation. Instead, ask for, and praise, learning and the work your child (and yourself!) puts into it!

Reflection #7 of 24 from the notes I took and the experience I had at the Seth Godin Q&A-session in London, November 2015. These reflections will constitute my Advent Calendar for 2015, and will be posted daily from December 1st to the 24th.

Criticism from a loved one

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Criticism from a loved one. Cuts so deep.

Holding a larger weight, coming from someone close to me, than remarks from a stranger or acquaintance. The thoughts of loved ones about me matter more, than the thought/belief others more distant might or might not hold of me. Sometimes it’s not even criticism, simply an observation or a wandering though being voiced. But I take it as criticism, I turn it into critique in my inner monologue.

When I get lost in the criticism from loved ones, my fear of losing the love of those closest to me, losing their respect, grows and grows, the more I value that unique individual. The greater the importance I place upon that someone, the greater the fear of having them disappear from my life. And if/when they critique me, that is what I fear the most. That they will leave me.

And it is odd. Because this means that I don’t hear what they say. I don’t hear the possible truth or message there might be in what I’m being told. I shut down, stop truly listening, my love for me and them seems to dissipate and my fear takes over. Fear of what might be, of what it might mean.

Often, arguments follow. Or sulking.
Sometimes what started as an innocent remark can escalate into what feels like an outright war.

getting lostAnd guess what.
I just realized, I am that loved one once in a while as well. I am not solely the one being critiqued, I also give critique to others. It doesn’t seem too farfetched to suggest that it works the same for them, as it does for me, does it?

But what would happen, when critiqued (that is, when I perceive that I am being critiqued!), if I stayed in love, rather than jump headfirst into my deepest fears? What might I learn? Is there learning for me there? About me? Or about my loved one? Learnings that I turn my back on, all because I lose my way, and get lost in the dungeons of my fear landscape. Dark. Cold.

What if I simply stick to love instead?

Podcast 37/52 – mindblowing podcast on intelligence

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Svara

Oh. Perhaps you are getting fed up with the podcast tips I’m providing every Sunday. It’s almost solely Good Life Project or On Being that I’ve featured lately. But heck, those two shows are simply so good. Honestly, if you have yet to actually click on one of the links I’m inserting into these podcast tip blog posts, you really should give it a go.

And, yeah, of course, you’ve probably guessed by now that I’m gonna write about one of these shows today as well. And you’re right. I will. You see, I’ve been listening over and over to an extremely fascinating conversation between Krista Tippett and educator Mike Rose on the intelligence present in all kinds of work.

Mindblowing. Mike describes the intelligence of a waitress, and made me realize what a fenomenal memory many waitresses have. The intelligence of a plumber, who perhaps works in limited surroundings, making it impossible to actually see with his or her eyes what the issue is, but through the help of probing fingers and an ability to paint an internal picture, can solve it. There’s beauty and, indeed, intelligence in all the millions of different work activities that goes on, through out the day and night, all over the world.

MindblowingI’m even fascinated by my fascination over this! And I’ve got a treat saved up for myself as well. There’s an unedited version of their conversation that I’ve yet to listen to. Oh goodie!

Anyway, check it out, and please pay extra attention the last 10-15 minutes of the episode, as Mike and Krista then touch upon a topic very close to my heart, that of the purpose of education, of learning, of schooling. I usually twitterify the question as #WhySchool, and, guess how happy I got when I heard Mike speak about why he thinks it’s so important to be very clear about the purpose of schooling and education. Oh, and if you want to, please let me know what pops up for you as you listen to this episode. Id love to hear your thoughts on the topics raised in this show. Ok?

Podcast 34/52 – The gift of failure

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I am very interested in school development and life long learning, with the firm belief that schools and how they are shaped actually shape the society we live in, to a large extent. Hence I was thrilled to listen to Jessica Lahey on Good Life Project, since she’s a teacher with a passion for learning.

And was I ever rewarded! Jessica and Jonathan had such an interesting conversation that when I was finished, and still had several kilometers left on the bike ride I was on, that I just pressed PLAY and started to listen one more time.

BoldomaticPost_The-gift-of-failures-an-opporJessica Lahey wrote an article in The Atlantic in January 2013 entitled Why parents need to let their children fail and since then, she’s written a book on the subject of failure as well. And she’s telling some fascinating stories in this podcast, around failure (amongst other things), and on the opportunity for growth that most (all?) failures bring with them. I especially like the way she balances her own experience both as a teacher and a parent, demonizing neither party, but totally seeing the pro’s and con’s each role can provide in the development of a child.

So, are you a parent? Listen to this episode.

Or perhaps, you are a teacher or work in schools? Listen to this episode.

Maybe you are lucky enough to be a parent yourself, or have any kind of relationship with children, such as being an aunt, uncle, grandfather, cousin, neighbor, scout leader or anything else where you come in contact with children and young adults? Listen to this episode.

There. I think I covered the lot right then and there, didn’t I? Have I convinced you yet that this is simply a no-miss-podcast that you definitely will listen to?

A threefie and four twofies.

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Was away last week and a young IPhone wiz showed me and the other adults a superduperfun IPhone photo trick. This is how my session turned out, a threefie with myself:

Threefie

Today, what with lovely weather and a car to make the most of (we’re car-sitting), we made a vegan quinoa salad with curry from Veggie Weekend (and it was DELICIOUS!) and packed ourselves and dinner into the car. We ended up at Krankesjön, at the top of the bird tower. And after dinner, I asked if the family wanted to have a bit of fun. Here’s the result, a series of twofies of the Roth family:

Mr B

Anders

Alma

Twofie

Wonder how it’s done? Well, it’s actually really easy. Use Panorama-photo, get the first pose ready, start to panorama (here from right to left, the Panorama can be switched, doesn’t have to be from left to right. Another thing the young wiz taught me!), and once you’ve gotten the first pose, the object runs BEHIND the photographer and gets into a new pose, while the photographer just holds the camera/IPhone still. Once the object is in place again, resume the panoramic movement. At the top, we did three poses (hence a threefie selfie), here, since we only had 4 meters to play with or so, we only did two (a twofie selfie).

I learned something new, and had a blast while doing it. Best kind of learning there is. And if you are anything like me, once you see these shots, you’re eager to try it out yourself. Right?

Please be gentle, I’m still learning

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”Please be gentle, I’m still learning” Robbie Williams sings in the song Advertising Space. Imagine living approximately forty years before getting that. Forty years before understanding that if I’m not gentle with myself, much less learning takes place. 

If I associate learning with pain, with being chastised, told off, ”I should have known”:ed, do you think my system would be promoting and encouraging learning? 

No. It (I) will run the other way. Shut down, slowly, insights will be fewer and farther apart… or at least, they will be significantly more quiet, almost unaudible. The inner voice of wisdom, of universal mind, will be barricaded, by myself, by my self-preserving ego. The innervoice will be unwanted. Out of fear. Fear of the pain that comes with learning, which I’ve associated with pain, harshness. 

And that will only change once I begin to be gentle with myself. And I speak from personal experience when I say that being gentle with me, is a very off concept for one accustomed to being harsh. Realizing my internal harshness was one of the greatest aha-moments of my life, and what I saw was that it’s not mandatory to be my own harshest judge. Kindness, gentleness, is an option. Also for me. 

This insight has been with me since 2006-2007 sometime, and took place during a therapy session. Since then I’ve practiced being gentle with myself, och it’s something which comes more and more natural to me nowadays. And that’s be reverting back to being more fully me, because I I think it is our natural state. We’re born and created to be gentle with ourselves, otherwise we wouldn’t be the learning creatures that we are, from the very get go. 

Imagine a small child being harsh with herself for not immediately knowing how to walk, run, ride a bicycle. A child is naturally gentle with themselves, trying, failing, falling down, trying again, failing, falling down, trying again…. over and over until suddenly, one step is managed, then two, then all of a sudden, the child can walk, can run, ride a bike. 

What happens to us? Why do we – at least I – stop being gentle with ourselves, and rather start to be hard on ourselves? Is that why children are the greatest learners there is? Not because adults don’t have the capacity to learn, but because we’ve stopped being gentle with ourselves, we expect to get things right away, and we are afraid to try and fail. Because we’ve put another meaning on what it means to fail, than the child trying to learn how to walk, run, rida a bike. We believe it means we are bad, not good enough. While the child simply knows it means that the learning process is still unfolding, there’s more to learn, more to master, before the learning process has manifested into yet another skill. And somehow, adults impose their faulty understanding upon children, creating yet another harsh un-learner. What if we adults instead learned from children what it is we are born to be? Life long learners, where the only prerequisite is being gentle to ourselves.

Please be gentle, I’m still learning. Are you?

Duolingo

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While on vacation in the UK, my brother who lives there, told us about the app/website Duolingo, which he’s using to refresh his French. Me and my daughter Alma downloaded the app, and I got started on German, and Alma on Spanish. We were hooked.

Then we came home, and my son was so eager to download the app onto the kids IPad that we barely got the luggage inside the front door before he had the IPad in hand, demanding help.

He started off with Italian, and man, it’s amazing to see. He asked me if I’d help him, and while I told him the truth that his Italian surely was way better than mine after a day with the language course, he crawled up beside me in the sofa. And while I couldn’t actually help him in any way, I could provide some moral support and also get totally amazed.

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Then today he decided he wanted to learn German instead (after telling me and his father that he want’s to go to Germany for the fall break! Last year we did India, this year he want’s Germany.), so he switched language in the app and set off to gather points in the morning. I could hear the German phrases coming from the vicinity of the kitchen table, but then all of a sudden there was some Spanish as well… turns out my husband also got curious enough to download the app and start a Spanish course.

Have to say thanks to my brother for setting us all off on a wild dash for improved language-skills!

Being a glorious day, we all went to the deep sea swimming-place and were away all day, with my sons best friend tagging along as well. But when we got home, guess what happened? My son and his best friend curled up on the sofa, and immediately started to practice their German. AND their English, which is an added bonus!

We’re Swedish but the app works with English as the base language so here were these two 10-year old boys discussing German and English verbs, nouns, spelling, grammar, scoring points as they went along.

Absolutely fascinating to witness – talk about there being a lot of joy in learning! Or rather, there sure can be a lot of joy in learning. And that’s the way it should be, in my view. Do you agree or disagree with that?