Embracing Difficulties

While Reading Chapter 4: Embracing Difficulties in “Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning,” I found it completely insightful. The sub-chapter priming the mind for learning, although on paragraph really made me think how important the right setting is to learning. Although it mentions the example of tying knots to anchors because you want to go fishing, this example parallels life quite a bit.

For most people they have to sit in a classroom, which is understandable, others can do and finish work via the internet with little help needed. Picking the location of learning is only half of the battel of priming the mind for learning. The other half is attitude, and, this just happens to be the most important half. I feel that for the majority of new students who enter college have the view or feeling of a continuation of high school.

I had to take a year off when I graduated. Half way into my second year off my parents, probably tiered of having me around all day, had urged me to get a job. That was a big motivation for me going back to school. My boss, Steve, had not gone to college and was running several successful business, he convinced me that although college was not for everyone he could tell that I could and should go back to school. The pay was okay but Steve said that people who get degrees make more money overall than people who don’t, and statistically I would be better off with whatever I wanted to do, if I had a college degree.

I went for 2 or 3 semesters with barely passing most of my courses, I felt like it was high school all over again.  It wasn’t until I was in my mid to late twenties that I realized how important getting a degree was. I went to apply for a job in the small town I was living in, I had sufficient experience, and I was very personable. Unfortunately I had lost out to someone I knew, someone who was not very bright, and the ignorance that would come out of their mouth sometimes made me cringe, but they had a college degree, so they got the job.

It was that motivation that made me start thinking that a college degree was the only thing that would help give me an edge in the job market. As I came to find out, through my experiences through Gavilan, that learning was not only fun, but I was good at it. I’ve always been one for learning, just in the non-conventional sense. I’m an autodidact, I’ve never really needed the educational system to support my learning, I’ve always had a thirst for knowledge.

            Once I found out that I was good at the being a positive force in the classroom, asking more questions, not shying away from being wrong, helping other students with understanding the assignments or questions. My whole attitude shifted and that made learning much, much, easier. My attitude was the real hurdle in my education, from then learning in a classroom has become a lot more entertaining, advantageous, and has help to make and foster connections between teachers, and fellow students, which in turn made learning more enjoyable, quicker, and easier. I don’t want to stop going to school now because of the connections I have formed and that are forming.