A few posts ago, I referred to an article in the January 2011 issue of The Writer magazine, called The Love of a Good Story, with Lisa Cron, story consultant and agent.
Cron talked about the need for urgency in a novel; that when you read a novel,if there is no sense of urgency then you aren't likely to want to continue to read it.
I'd like to propose that similar to a sense of urgency within a story line compelling readers to continue reading the novel, why shouldn't we expect that same sense of urgency when it comes to learning and educating?
Learning as exciting; learning as being urgent. The sense of urgency as a good thing, a desirable and motivating aspect present when the learner is pursuing something that interests him or her. Something to keep our eyes open for.
Contrary to popular belief, even when what kids are interested in is 'hard' or 'difficult,' they want to learn and understand it because it is worth it to them.
If there is no sense of urgency to what we are engaged in; if there is no sense of wanting to know more, do more, than obviously the thing is not for us (at this moment in time at least. Maybe it will be later on in life).
I can't understand the point in making people study things they are not interested in. Why waste their time; their lives?
One of the reason why we put up with 'learning' and doing stuff we don't want to do, and making kids learn things they don't want to, is because we think we/they have all the time in the world. We don't.
We act as if we are immortal. We aren't.
I keep asking myself the question, "Whose life is it, anyway?"
2 comments:
RFS-you always have a fresh spin on a topic. That's why I follow this blog. This is a novel idea-urgency in learning-not that like in a school system there is an urgency to cover certain curriculum, but that there is an inherent urgency in the learner to know more about something that interests him and that is a catalyst for spurring him onto higher, deeper learning. Well done on this concept!
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