Learn

As I move back to school today, I am reminded of why I'm here to begin with - I'm here to learn. Yoda seemed like a perfect fit for my attitude today. While it's true that learning can take place in the form of something completely new - a filling of a blank slate, if you will - the majority of the time learning involves 'unlearning' something else. Growth requires that something has to die in order for something new to take it's place.

Take this past semester for instance. I took an educational psychology class and one of the units was on test writing. Specifically, how to write a test so the answer isn't immediately obvious. If you have been a student, you probably know what I'm talking about. I loved the tests that you could answer one question by reading another question. It was almost too easy. Well, it was my goal to make sure that didn't happen. Going into the class, I thought I had it all figured out. I knew how to write a test, it's not that hard. Well, my work showed me otherwise. Little did I know I was just beginning the process of 'unlearning' my previous habits and practices in order to utilize better, newer practices.
Have you ever had an experience like this? Better yet, were you able to take the experience and learn from it? Perhaps you learned to take things with more openness, testing it before totally throwing it aside. That is something that I took from this lesson. Without unlearning, there can be no learning.