The Will to Learn

How, do we learn best?

To instill a will to learn, nature provides us all with inherent incentives...needs for our own survival that require our particular species to process information and utilize it to continue our own existence.

Yet, this process is imperfect. We sometimes learn things that we don't really need to know to survive. We also forget important information that may be crucial to us. Some ideas and concepts seem easy to grasp, while others take enormous effort or at least monumental cognitive processing in order to master. The first step to any learning may be the realization that our own personal experience is incomplete. This realization only comes through observation of our environment and surroundings. A set of extrinsic sensual experiences triggers some type of need that leads to exploration. In other words, how can we know that we need to learn unless we have observed that it may be necessary or interesting for us to do so?

So, this external "stimulus", leads to internal processing which then leads to another need to either explore or interact with the external environment again. By doing so, we seem to either elicit a gathering of new information, an expected response, or an unexpected result. Essentially, we have seen a path that appears interesting, it has stimulated our curiousity and now we must explore it! What will we experience on this path? What might lie at the end of it? Will it be something new or interesting? Our imagination is engaged and now we heighten our senses to insure that we gather as much information as we can about this experience. It drives us on in the path. We find a need or a will of our own that presses us to overcome the obstacles or challenges necessary to accumulate these new experiences. Essentially we have an existential NEED to learn what may come next.

This need to learn is perhaps heightened by the LACK of experience. Children often seem insatiable in their questioning and need to learn more, but adults may not be such enthusiastic questioners. For, as we age and accumulate more experiences, our will to learn may even fade a bit. We grow "jaded" or "tired" of pushing ourselves only to find the same or quite similar experiences along the way. This may then explain the very common human interest in novelty. Why do we travel? Why do we shop? Why do we constantly seem to seek out that "perfect" cup of coffee? or why do we "rubberneck" the latest auto accident on the highway? Do we crave novelty so much due to our interest in learning something new or is it because it provides a basis for the generation of new questions? Once we reach the end of the path...we see a beautiful lake. Do we ask what's in the lake or do we turn around thinking its just "another lake" like all of the others we've experienced? Does open-mindedness and a willingness to ask questions color our experience so much that it may not just deny opportunities through our actions, but actually interfere with them? (Political arguments about conservatives vs. liberals excepted...) To insure our own existence, might it be necessary to continue to cultivate this "will to learn"? (the subject of another post...probably later.)

Questioning may be the key, for as we train ourselves to continuously ask questions, we provide ourselves with more opportunities to learn. This process occurs in many formats: in

groups or in solitude, listen or watching, discussing or interacting, doing or sensual perceiving. A stream of input experiences feeds the human brain in a variety of ways throughout our life. (Whether we have TOO much input is again, a subject for another post...OVERSTIMULATION...) However, we all have our individual preferences for input and questioning. Personal combinations of learning styles, interface modes, interactive processing needs, and intra-active personal reflective processing needs shape our interest, perception, and need to question. Ultimately, this means that a "good" teacher should address as many of these input strategies as possible to insure that the will to learn remains high for all.

How do we keep our will to learn? By chasing rainbows, reaching for the outer edges, pushing ourselves past the comfort zone, and ultimately, by asking questions and seeking the answers, not because they are "assigned", but because they provide some new interest or insight that will enhance and enrich each others existence.

I don't actually recall, but I think it was Ben Franklin who said to "try something new every day. "

In any event, I would not only agree, but also say to ask a probing question about it too.

Tim

"Even if the universe is infinite, we must expand our minds and attempt to fill the void."