Saturday, September 24, 2011

Learn to Learn

My sister and I were having a conversation one day about school. She had told one of her teachers that she wanted to go into education so she could become a high school or middle school teacher. Her chemistry teacher told her that she shouldn't go into education because the job market is not good for teachers.

Sure, sounds like reasonable enough advice right? But what is this chemistry teacher's premise? It is that we get an education in order to solidify a job.

What about getting an education to be an educated person??

I had some friends over and we were talking about how college really just made us become learners for the sake of getting good grades and completing our credits. I barely ever studied in undergrad. I just did the minimum required in order for me to get my A and forget about the class after the semester was done. But now that I'm in grad school I have subjects that are specialized in what I actually care about learning and understanding. Like this one linguistics course I'm taking, for instance. The professor wrote a bunch of articles and books that I read before coming to the course so I was really exciting to study under her. The way she runs things is that we read each week, discuss material, and write a few papers. There are no exams. Honestly I love this way of learning but I'm engaged, keeping up with all the readings, and actually understanding and applying what we're discussing in my work. I'm not worrying about what I need to remember to do well on an exam.

So that is it. I am going to go back to school...but this time around just to be a well-educated and well-read individual. No registrations, no fees, no deadlines, and no exams. Just pure learning for the sake of learning. I started with www.khanacademy.org which is an AWESOME tool for everyone. Right now I'm watching the videos on Organic Chemistry.

I used to be pre-med before I switched over to the social sciences. Don't get me wrong, I love the social sciences and I definitely love my job and what I'm pursuing right now. But I remember that I used to looovee my math and science courses and I really miss them! So far the first few videos of Orgo have been challenging but interesting and engaging.

What have you always wanted to learn?

10 comments:

Almas Kiran Shamim said...

i agree with you.. we need to learn for the sake of learning...

i never wanted to be a doc... i wanted to be a journalist or a teacher .. and writer for sure...

but,i ended up as a doc.. and thru out my college, i never performed as well as i used to during school...
most definitely, it was coz i'd left the subjects that i really liked...

anyways, now, after my internship is over- i really feel like doing my college again, studying properly and not just treating patients for the heck of it...

i have started studying again Alhamdulillah .. and i have even started writing again... am lagging behind.. but at least i have started :)

controlled chaos said...

Learn for the sake of learning...Med school would laugh at you.

ha!

supreem said...

Me too.... I get so upset that education has been so commodified.
I totally am gonna start watching a "khan academy" video per day.... lets see how long it takes me to get through all of them.

Farnnay said...

i like this mentality.

PI said...

wow thaats so cool, i wish i found that khan academy website before i signed my life away to MD program (not that i regret becoming a doctor,but i do hate how we're taught to prescribe drug after drug though when ALlah created so many alternatives that should be looked at first before resorting to side-effect galore)
and i want to learn everything. just dont have time right now. saving away that webiste tho

controlled chaos said...

Oh! I never even answered your question! And it's such a fun question!!

Okay, I've always wanted to learn
1. How to do mental math
2. How to ride a horse
3. Falconry
4. Relearn Spanish
5. Relarn Arabic
6. Tajweed thoroughly
7. Rules of cooking-the why's and how's
8. Jump Hurdles
9. How to be confident or at least pretend to be when you're terrified
10. how to debate
11. Geography
12. To paint
13. Psychology
14. To dance
15. To sing
16....>wait, i should stop. This list is too long

controlled chaos said...

16. was swimming btw...
Now i'll stop.

controlled chaos said...

The next one was Healing touch btw

and Islamic healing

and Hypnotism

and how to French braid

...>GAHHH

Farnnay said...

^
i promise i was waiting for this answer cause i knew she was going to do that.

controlled chaos said...

^ And how about you answer the question.. HUH?!