Tag: learning

Categories
life

Gardening Problem

I face a little problem with my garden. Having extra time today, I finally got around to starting to clean out my garden. I know it’s a bit early in the season right now, but the bugs have been getting to some of my plants and I need to make some changes in preparation for next year so I’m starting early.

I started by harvesting the carrots that had not been looking promising early in the season. Now the carrots have taken off so that in many places there is virtually no dirt between the carrots. They are big and beautiful and too numerous to eat all of them soon. I pulled out the broccoli plants since I already have more broccoli than I can eat. I pulled up the potatoes. I have been wondering about them all year since I could see that the plants grew, but I could only guess at how well the potatoes were coming on. I don’t remember having much success with potatoes in our family garden when I was growing up so I was not sure what our chances would be. We got lots of potatoes – even if you don’t count the ones that got sliced by the shovel as I dug up the dirt after removing the plants to find any potatoes I had missed. We also removed all our squash plants but there was little fruit left to harvest there because we had already taken most of it in. The squash plants had been the hardest hit by our bug problem.

So what’s my gardening problem? I can’t possibly eat everything I picked today unless I learn how to store things over the winter. I know it can be done because people have lived for centuries without refrigeration or global produce shipping. The problem is I am not exactly sure how to do it since we live in an age where most people live week to week between trips to the grocery store rather than working all summer to live over the winter on the produce you saved from your harvest.

You may ask why it matters since I can always go buy food at the store. The answer is that I have a goal to one day learn how to live entirely off my garden. I hope it never becomes necessary, but I would like to have that skill so that I can better understand and appreciate our modern lifestyle. Storing the produce of my garden over the winter is one step towards that goal.

Categories
life

Discerning or Disagreeable

I have been going to conference sessions all day today and it has made me begin to question how I approach learning. I find that there are no classes where I simply absorb what is being said without finding parts where I disagree.

I think it is the responsibility of every student to consider what they are being taught so and coming to know and believe it for themselves, or where they cannot believe it they must discard it in favor of something which they can believe. If that is what I am doing, then I am sure that I am playing the part of the prudent student.

I began to wonder today if the fact that there was no class where I could accept everything was a sign that I was being either proud or picky.

For example, I was in a class on gardening and learning a lot about a specific way of gardening that is supposed to produce high yields and reduce weeding and space requirements. I liked a lot of what I had heard and I learned a lot about composting which I intend to implement, but despite all the benefits which were listed, I do not intend to implement the gardening plan as presented in the class. I found that it did not agree with my own gardening goals. I will use some principles and see if it improves my results, or cuts my costs, but I don’t want to put the work or the cash in to follow the method to the letter.

As I think about it, I believe that it is a matter of discernment and not just me being disagreeable. I am not judging the information to be bad, or faulty, but I am adapting it to my own situation and my own purposes.

Categories
life

Direction

What am I interested in?

That is the question of the day. I have realized that I am floundering and I know myself well enough to know that when I have an interest to pursue I do not flounder. I am currently unable to identify a direction for myself. I cannot plan an academic direction so I am left to wander academically – I am quickly learning that this is not a good situation. Too bad nobody else can tell me what it is I am interested in.

Categories
life

Aftermath

I have been thinking about this whole process of death and grieving since Grandma’s death. I am amazed with how unpredictably predictable it has been. If you had asked me to predict two months ago – before Grandma was even ill – what it would be like for my grandma to die I would have said that I would be sad but functional for quite a while. I would have said that my grief would not be exhibited as visible emotion.

Now that the funeral is over and I am able to look back (from close proximity) I am amazed to find how much the weight of Grandma’s death was exhibited as outward emotion. I was also amazed to discover that it could not really be categorized as sadness. Even after such a brief illness it was a relief for her to be released from her pain. The other amazing thing is that the grief seems to be over so soon after the funeral.

What I learned, in essence, is that there is a whole lot of therapeutic value in attending the funeral and processing the grief and pain in concert with others who are sharing the loss in common with you. This may not be completely over for me, but it is certainly no longer at the forefront of my mind – life has once again replaced death in my thoughts.

Categories
life

Finished

I enjoyed reading Hyrum’s posting on Pain a few days ago. I thought I would offer the final correction. Last night Grandma died. She had had enough of the pain and finally it was over. The doctors kept getting mixed results as some things would get better and others would get worse. In the end she had developed a fever which had no detectable cause – she was just done.

I’m glad that her pain is over. I’m sure I will revisit this many times before I have fully integrated it into my life. It is nice to know what is of real value in this life. I am able to take joy in my family just as Grandma had taken joy in her family for her entire life.

Categories
Education life

Biography

This is slightly related to the reflection that I talked about in Back on Track but it also comes out of thinking from my Social Computing Class. Our readings have talked about the trajectory that is reflected in systems of interaction. One of the sub-concepts of trajectory is “biography” or personal trajectories.

As I thought about this concept I began to recognize the trajectories in my life. As a student in high school I could easily have imagined myself getting a PhD, but when I started college it soon became much harder to imagine that scenario, yet here I am. Although there were forces that would discourage my pursuit of this advanced degree, the trajectory and the impetus to continue with my education were stronger than the discouragement.

Professionally, I thought that I would be studying design of instruction, but due to changes in my life I took courses in assessment and I discovered an interest in that area of study that I would have not expected to have any interest. I now have a trajectory that appears likely to last a lifetime which I would not have predicted even one year ago.

Categories
life

Mortality

I have been riding an interesting emotional roller-coaster in the last few days. My grandmother – who has had her share of health problems in the last few years but is really very healthy considering her age – was diagnosed with a type of pneumonia. She has been in the hospital, and while she will probably recover, it was looking questionable for a time.

For the first time, I had to seriously consider the imminent death of someone close to me. I have had people die that I was related to, but none that I knew really well. The emotional reaction was strong. Laura tried to comfort me, expressing her sorrow for my pain, but that only forced me to consider what I was feeling. As a pragmatist, I accept death as a natural part of live. It is not truly a tragedy for a good person to die after a long and full life – especially if the death also brings a cessation of pain to that person. I was not feeling fear, despite the fact that I have never experienced the death of someone so close to me before. I discovered how natural and unstoppable the sorrow and pain of loss is when death approaches (even before it arrives in cases like this). The thing that I realized is that the pain is healthy, and spurs the healing process, so long as we let the pain pass through us, rather than holding on to it as if it was all that was left of our loved one.

Part of my sorrow was that I have just moved far from my grandmother, so I feel a little more helpless and out of touch that I had previously. I guess that’s okay too. I am living my life just as she would wish me to do. She certainly would not want me to be paralyzed by her health.

Categories
life

The Power of Direction

I have often floundered in my life when I did not feel that I had a direction in my mind for where I was heading with my current situation. I found myself in one of those doldrums last year – in about March.

I was in the middle of a very difficult second semester of my masters program and I was feeling very separated from my department and fellow students as a result of living over 100 miles from campus. I began to look forward to where I was headed and I realized that I was unsure. I wanted to get a PhD, but I did not know where and I was not even fully committed to that course of action. I had considered the programs at Brigham Young University and Utah State University, but I was leaning towards the program at the University of Georgia.

I made the question a matter of prayer and late in the month of March while I was deep in contemplation I felt the impression that I should have a look at the University of Missouri. I had applied and been accepted there among the many universities that I had considered for my Masters degree, but had never thought of it after I had chosen to do my Masters degree at Utah State University. I got very excited once I began looking at their program because many of the faculty were working in areas that I was interested in and they accepted new PhD students in the Winter semester which would allow me to continue directly after finishing my Masters degree in December.

From the time I decided to aim for the University of Missouri I did better in my classes and was more focused on my program and my long-term goals. I got in contact with faculty at MU and I knew what I needed in the way of grades etc. for applying to their program. I had deadlines to meet and all my uncertainty was gone. I guess I live for the future.

Categories
culture

Learning for Life

Laura was talking about the need to do better at preparing young women for motherhood. This is not the first time that she has talked about this lack in preparing for life. It has not taken her very long to figure out that her expectations of motherhood were not accurate to the realities of motherhood. She was talking about a great idea which would help young mothers and young women who are not mothers yet.

Laura was proposing that teenage girls be given the opportunity to help young mothers during the early months after their first children have been born so that the new mothers have a little extra help and the young women get a very real perspective on what motherhood is like. They would have fewer incorrect ideas of what to expect.

As we talked about it a little I realized how much things have changed in the way we learn about life from the way they were less than a century ago. Back then children learned what to expect from life when they grew up by participating in the adult activities of their parents. Children might help on the family farm or for those who could not participate in the work that their parents did they might be required to work a job to help support the family. Back then young women learned what motherhood was like by being close to their mothers and by spending a fair deal of time taking care of younger siblings and helping around the house.

In our current society where children are not expected to do anything for their families but instead are supposed to devote their time to learning in the abstract (school) and being cared for as if they were guests at home, it is no wonder that childhood activity is often extended past college with people not knowing what they want out of life. I know that is not always the case but that seems to be the prevailing trend in society.

Categories
Education

Learning by Doing

After a hectic couple of weeks I have noticed that my mind is returning repeatedly to a topic that I had not thought about very much before. I discover that I am interested in the proper balance of theory vs experience in education. My thoughts were sparked by a discussion that I had with a computer science professor here at Utah State, Dr. Greg Jones, and an article I read about the “Learning by Doing” CS Masters degree at Carnegie-Mellon. I have been a CS student so this seemed fairly relavant to my experience. I learned a whole lot through my work that I would not have learned in the classroom. I also know that my understanding of the work I was doing was enhanced by classroom discussions. I had a better understanding of why things were the way they were at work because of what I learned on campus. I thought a program that had no tests or classroom instruction was a little on the extreme side – classroom instruction can add depth to the experience of “Learning by Doing.” In talking with Dr. Jones I found out that the CS department here has talked about the competing goals of training students to be gainfully employed vs training students to further the field of Computer Science. It is my belief that, generally speaking, the focus of technical schools is gainful employment. Undergraduate degrees should have a greater focus on theory, but still be very heavy on practical experience. Graduate school should be able to assume that most of the practicle experience has been gained through undergraduate work and doctoral programs are their own practical experience already. I would not venture to guess how close this fits with any school or the system in general currently, but to my mind this seems to be the ideal balance to be sought. The lower the level of education the higher the focus on experience and practical job-skills. The higher you go the more useful the theory becomes because the job-skills are (hopefully) already in place.