Are we learners or students?

Our Learning and Technology class has a very different set up than I am used to--there is no concrete syllabus, very few specific assignments and guidelines, and (perhaps the most foreign concept of all) the expectation that we will be learners.

Yes, I just said that being a learner is a foreign concept to many of us, myself included. "But isn't that the goal of education?" you ask and, "I've always been a learner; I don't know what you're talking about," you scoff. But is it really and are you sure? After thinking deeply about it and reflecting on our professor's post on learners vs. students I would have to boldly say that we as a society are hardly learners at all.

We have been trained by our education system to be students--to follow the norm, the syllabus, the guidelines--and have been sucked dry of the inclinations to be a learner instead. And I will be the first to admit that I fall into this student category. I've been well trained to cater my work to the teacher's desires, I know when to be quiet and when to chime in, and I have felt pride at times that I can test well, generally know how to succeed and get good grades--that I can be a good student.

And there it is: I am a good student. I've never heard anyone say "I'm a good learner," and maybe that says something in and of itself.

So yes, it makes me uncomfortable to not have a rubric to guide me, a checklist to complete, a number or quantity assigned to produce--it's unfamiliar territory with a technically "unmeasurable" expectation. We know through educational research that these traditional methods often stifle creativity and limit learning, yet we do them anyway. And graduate school, where I'm often reminded of the fallacy of these methods, is a regular perpetrator itself. I'm given page limits, word limits, specific expectations--and the scary part is, they make me comfortable. Familiar is comfortable.

But learning is not always comfortable. So now here I am, constantly battling with wanting to learn, to create, to test out and to try, and yet struggling with it--struggling because my other classes require very little of this (and quite frankly, because I haven't really been allowed this kind of chance to learn before).

So what does it mean to be a learner? This goal that is so uncomfortable to reach? And what can we do to encourage it? For me being a learner is having the intrinsic motivation to seek out information, to acquire knowledge with the intent of using it to do something in the world. As educators we have the awesome responsibility of creating these types of learners that will hopefully change the world. Are we allowing them the opportunities to explore? To learn on their own? Or are we prescribing an agenda and teaching to the test?

What can we do to start changing this in our classrooms while still jumping through all of the hoops that our broken systems requires from us? I'd love to hear your opinions of how this can be done, as I'm honestly searching for the balance myself. But for now, I will do my best to model by example and try to be a learner rather than just a student. Wish me luck!

Photo: GETTY via http://www.telegraph.co.uk