First reflection task

I usually really don't like reflection tasks (read: hate em). It's the "no one knows how I feel inside" quality of such texts which I find incredibly boring to read. But, this MOOC I am following (What Future for Education?) requires that I write one. So I am cringing inside as I take to the keyboard to produce one myself. I will try to keep it to the point. So here goes:

This week´s reflection topic is:

Reflect on your previous learning experiences. Think about one particularly successful and one unsuccessful learning experience. Consider what were the conditions that made this experience successful or unsuccessful for you and what this tells you about your own preferred ways to learn.

The academic inside of me is annoyed by the imprecise language used in this question. My previous learning experiences? Like ANY of them? On a micro level I look at it, read it, write it and do it, and then it's in. On a macro level, however, I have to ask: In school, out of school, at music school, inn scouts, gymnastics, and the list goes on. I have to assume they mean from my formal education, but even this is difficult. Are we talking ONE specific experience? I sincerely hope that more than just a handful of people reading this has had more than a few specific learning experiences that are memorable and that have stuck with them as successful experiences. For the future of education, I seriously hope that.

It would be easier for me to chunk them up according to which level/grades I was in. Also, looking back on my formal education, I have a hard time saying exactly when I was (actually) learning something, and just having fun in class. That goes for more or less every school and grade I have been in - apart from maybe one school/one grade - which I found so incredibly boring I just could not bear it. Other than that one year, I did a lot of really fun things when I went to school.

I was in the GATE program and later I took the IB programme. And I learned a lot. Most of all, I learned to take full responsibility for my own learning outcomes. What you put in is what you get out. But if I were to chose my years at GATE or IB as successful learning experiences to reflect and comment on, I would have to say that it was because we were given so much freedom to learn, and the teachers trusted us so much that they let us do so (at our very crazy, experimental and bit out there pace).

I am sure, though, that not everyone has experienced the same type of learning environments and perhaps even within my class the kids could have experienced it differently. I am fortunate because I don't think I have been in a learning situation where the teachers didn't honestly believe that we were a bunch of smart, able kids. That type of trust is invigorating, but of course could only be given because we individually (not necessarily only collectively) had an appropriate knowledge base, and they had no preconceived notions of the limits of what we were capable of.

A bad learning experience is easier to pick out. Right here and now, however, I can only think of one, in one particular class setting. It lasted an academic year. Clearly the school was just the wrong school for me. I was so bored, so incredibly bored. It wasn't engaging, it wasn't interesting. It didn't build on anything, it wasn't challenging. The teachers didn't think we knew anything; which we didn't (collectively) since we were all from different schools and had different backgrounds and knowledge levels and all of this was different from what the teacher had. I was so uninterested that I fell behind in everything, making it twice as hard to stick with it. I had to quit and do something else.

Was it me, was it the teacher, was it the program? I don't know. But some main areas concerning my preferred ways to learn become clear from this. I like challenging, difficult tasks to work on either individually or in groups. I like to read, write, formulate, try out and question things. Freedom to develop and inquisitiveness are important factors, as well as trusting in myself and being trusted by omg teachers. 

My good and bad learning experiences ultimately have very little to do with learning, and much more about the situation and atmosphere in which learning can occur.