Reformation of My Mind: Relearning about Learning Part 1

I urge anyone reading to follow me closely as I write about my unkinking process. Because firstly, I am Not holding this book up as THE authority to life. But I realized as I did honest reflection upon my life, the words in the book corroborated with my own discovery process about education and it has managed to organize and put succinctly my confusions into codified language. Secondly, whilst this book is written by a non Christian [a buddhist to be exact and I can just imagine the jaws of some dropping:)], it is nevertheless one who has exercised the faculty of his mind, a very precious gift that God has bestowed to mankind. And for that, he does far better than Christians who have isolated themselves to all things sacred and have chosen to close their minds up to learning. Thirdly, because I attempt to write down my reflections as I place it alongside God's word. Lastly, because I think that this unkinking process will assist many many...and liberate us to live the life we are suppose to .

Here we go...

One truth that liberalized and unkinked my mind through "What's the point about school?" is that - Knowledge is contentious and incomplete.  That sounds like a simple enough statement that one can agree heartedly. But as I reflected on the truth of this statement throughout my 35 years of history of  how knowledge was imparted to me and how knowledge was absorbed by me, I realized it was a kink that was never released but reinforced. I think it trapped me for a large part of my existence. Phew! Phenomenon revelation. 

As cool a teacher as I was :), I did not believe that knowledge was contentious. I did not believe that knowledge was incomplete. I entered school accepting that all knowledge imparted is truth or at least, knowledge that I did not know better. So my natural response was to see how much of this I can absorb and retain- through memorizing, through rote, through acronyms, through mindmaps, through pictorials, through whatever learning styles I believed I was inclined to. Follow me now - all these methodologies are not wrong, in fact, these are ingenious inventions by men in a bid to understand the vast and mysterious world that God has created; Creation trying to understand their Creator. 

But what was wrong with me was I never questioned, I never enquired, I never probed, I never spontaneously experimented, I never dared do wrong. I never really understood what I was absorbing. All I did was to channel my efforts and energies in mastering knowledge, whatever it was. And guess what, I was never really interested in knowledge or learning about my world. I merely absorbed knowledge because I needed it to move onto the next phase in life. For that reason, I preferred knowledge presented to me on a platter [spoonfeeding! sounds familiar?] because it was the most expedient way of regurgitating my knowledge on the subject whenever it was required. Throughout my education life, I was living out a philosophy and a belief that Knowledge is complete and An End of itself. This philosophy was translated both in the physical and spiritual realm.