Month: September 2020

I was really struck by Soals’ post about overcoming the good art complex because this is something that has had a certain impact on my life as well. From my own experiences, I can definitely empathize with the pressure that the only valid art is “good” art, and the idea of art only being possible with mastery and that mastery being represented as realism. By putting very rigid notions of what it means to be “art” we end up limiting who is “allowed” to create, when in actuality art doesn’t need to achieve these mind-boggling feats that we expect it to in order for it to be of worth. When I show someone something I’ve drawn or created, I feel the need to do an immediate disclaimer as they look at it by saying “I’m not an artist but here it is” so that way if it is considered “bad” I don’t have as much personal stake in the matter. This is a very limiting and unfortunate byproduct of our Western notion of art, and it results in feelings of shame or inaccessibility over something that is inherently accessible. Instead of learning or growing for the enjoyment of a craft, people are instead learning for the sake of getting to put an arbitrary label of outward approval, and it takes the joy out of discovery. I absolutely agree with Soals’ statement that it’s important to push past these biases and rediscover yourself.

Reading Latenight11’s blog post about learning the ukulele reminded me of my own story of maintaining motivation and not giving up. Just like I had a support system that helped me when I doubted myself; they too had a support system in the form of their roommate. What made Latenight’s experience even better is that their roommate ended up joining them and they learned ukulele together, so this shared experience became even more fruitful when they had each other to keep the other accountable. You really get the sense reading all these posts that having someone who encourages you and gives you positive reinforcement makes all the difference when it comes to learning, and this is an approach that sees practical results.

Both of these posts helped me think more about the prompt and my own experiences, so thank you for writing Soals and Latenight11!

Share a story about your best learning experience. Why did you enjoy it?

For me, my best learning experience was ironically, in a case where I was learning how to teach. For three years I was a teacher’s assistant in a second-grade classroom, where I was learning every day how to interact, teach, and engage with young children. This was a steep learning curve for me, because even though I loved kids; I had never been around them for an extended period of time, and especially in a context where I was supposed to be more of an authority figure. This combination could have easily been disastrous if I had had a subpar mentor. Luckily though, this was not the case for me. What made this experience such a positive one was that I had the pleasure of working with a teacher who was able to learn and adjust her approach after she got to know me and my own learning style more. 

Like it is mentioned in Motivation and Learning, knowing your target learners will increase the likelihood of increased motivation. There were many times during those years that I felt frustrated or discouraged at how things were going, but because my mentor understood who I was and how I worked best; she was able to help me work through these difficult times and mental walls. I already had an interest in teaching, as I mentioned earlier in this post I had always loved kids, but if that interest wasn’t fed into positively then it very well could’ve died out. When considering the question, “Why were you so invested in seeing it through?” It’s because I had that very firm and consistent support system that was able to help me navigate through uncertainty and lapses in motivation. I enjoyed this experience so much because it was about more than learning, but also about building bonds not only with my mentor but with the kids I was working with. Because I was so well supported, I was then in a better state to support the children too and so on and so forth. Those positives mindsets could then see into other intrapersonal relationships, and every person in that environment was then better off for it. This example of my own best learning experience is one that I hold very highly because it was able to show me the tangible positive effects of fitting a teaching approach to specific learners.

Hello everyone! My name is Capri and I am a third-year anthropology student who is very excited to be welcoming you all to my blog! I’m majoring in anthropology and minoring in education, with the hope of honing in on the connection between youth and culture as a bridge between the two subjects.  I desperately wish I could be in Victoria, but I’m actually back in my home state of Washington right now with my parents. I’m an international student who came to Canada to study, but unfortunately, I’m stuck in the U.S for the time being! Regardless, I’m really glad that I’ll still have this opportunity to learn and connect with other students this semester as we all go through navigating online learning, and to be able to write out some of these thoughts using this blog!

In my free time, I just like to play the Nintendo Switch, read, watch movies, and other pretty normal things that I’m sure we’ve all spent a lot of time doing over the past couple of months. I’m a huge fan of attending concerts and live music as well, but those have understandably not been very common as of late. At the end of this first post, I’ve also attached a photo of my dog Muffin who keeps me company. She is absolutely the light of my life and if anyone would like more pictures of her I am happy to provide. Hopefully, that’s a good amount of info to get to know me a little better! Please anticipate more of my blog posts sometime in the near future!