Embracing Lifelong Learning

A common theme discussed throughout the presentations and lectures in week 4 was the notion of lifelong learning. While nowadays this concept is familiar and obvious to me, if I am being honest, it was not too long ago when I first truly discovered what this concept meant and how important it is in respect to our everyday lives. 

For as long as I can remember, learning was something that happened in the classroom or confined to the walls of a school. While I knew that as we grew older our experiences and exposures would allow us to learn, the bulk of learning appeared to me as something that coincided with formal schooling. And, truthfully, I was pretty stuck in this mindset up until a few years ago when I engaged in my own “recreational learning” and realized that this process is not simply something that needs to take place in a certain location or has a definite endpoint. See, I had always wanted to learn Italian and after taking classes in elementary school and not remembering much, I assumed it was just something I would never be able to learn. But, as I was preparing for a family trip to Italy, I knew I would regret it if I made absolutely no effort to try again and learn the language. So, I opened my Duolingo app and started watching the Italian channel on TV, and slowly but surely I began to learn parts of the language and gain an understanding that I never previously had. To this day, I still continue to practice and broaden my Italian vocabulary, and while it is certainly not perfect, it has given me a new appreciation for what learning is all about.

In this experience, for the first time I truly saw learning not as something I needed to study for or spend hours in lectures talking about, but rather, as something organic, that can happen anywhere and any time. This is a lesson I intend to hold especially dear to my heart as I become an educator. While it is important that students value school and my classroom as a learning space, it is equally as important that they do not get caught up in the same misconceptions I had, and appreciate the fact that learning has no set constraints. School is just one opportunity to learn, but this does not happen in isolation. By framing learning to my students as something with no simple end point or destination, they can see there is no simple perfection to strive for or box to check, rather learn to embrace the ongoing journey of growth they are on, and continue to take away value from every experience they engage in. 

EmmaT@OTU