Opportunities
David Bull
When I began my path towards my Master of Arts in Education I did it without any expectations for how I would continue to learn after my degree was earned. At the time learning for me was represented by formal education and the milestones one achieved along the way - high school, undergraduate and graduate degrees. You went to school and earned a degree or perhaps a specialized certificate so my expectation was that when my degree was complete I was done with learning, because I had no plans to pursue a third Master's degree or Doctorate. I now realize that my focus was on formal education and I did not think about education outside of that in any significant way. The milestones one reached, first a Bachelor's degree then a Master's degree and perhaps more could be early or later in life and for me it was both, but learning was measured by these milestones reached within a formal setting. I have changed and my expectations are greater now because my experiences in this program have taught me many things and amongst them are that learning is formal and informal, it is in a class, in a training and on your own and it certainly is not limited to the milestone of earning a degree. I now see many opportunities in my future for learning. It is as if a barrier has been removed. I was constrained by thinking that learning had to be recognized by a degree or certification. Now I see that learning is much more than that and the opportunities to learn are much broader than I imagined.
I started to experience a change in my expectations almost right away because I have used something from each and every class at work and I realized that as I was putting this knowledge into practice that I was co-constructing new knowledge with my fellow workers. Sometimes I have been able to share materials with them, such as a book, an article or even a psychological test. On other occasions I have taken my new knowledge and used it to guide my thinking and actions. From this very class I have gone from never having considered developing a website to having created one for a health challenge amongst my colleagues. I also am working with some of my staff on plans for a website for our program. All the staff I am working with on plans for this new website have no experience with website development. I am co-constructing knowledge with them as they share with me what needs to be in our website and I share with them how I think it can be done. Since I am a novice at this we often have to work together to figure out how to get things done.
My classroom is not full of the preschoolers that fill my program's classrooms but rather my classroom is full of the teachers and social workers in my program who work tirelessly to provide quality services to our children and their families. With this in mind, my thoughts and actions have been about sharing my online experiences as a way to develop the program by providing a working environment for staff that promotes their success in the work that they do. If I share information on journal writing as a support for teacher inquiry, as I did after reading The Girl With A Brown Crayon by Vivian Paley; or share information on performance gaps which is a concept from the course on professional development; or if I work with a team of staff to develop methods of reducing our use of paper which would be supported by moving more of our work online then I am utilizing the knowledge I have gained through my coursework.
My experiences have made me realize that there are many opportunities for learning and that they do not always have to result in a degree. There have been a lot of professional development opportunities available to me through seminars, webinars and conferences, but my focus was on formal education and the need to get a degree. It was as if the point of schooling was the degree and not the deep understanding that comes with the application of concepts and knowledge. I was very focused on the idea that if you weren't going to earn a degree then there was no point in taking the course. Every class needed to be connected to a degree and you earned your degree for the express purpose of being more proficient at what you do or preparing for your next opportunity. My experiences have broadened my thinking in this regards. For the future, I believe that improving my Spanish language skills would be helpful and also fulfilling. Now I do not feel the need to earn a degree in Spanish to do that nor do I necessarily need to take on campus college courses to fulfill this expectation. I need to find the resources that fit my learning style and my situation and then put forth the effort to get it done. This is simpler and liberating and I now see myself as a lifelong learner with no end in sight.
My experiences have made me realize that there are many opportunities for learning and that they do not always have to result in a degree. There have been a lot of professional development opportunities available to me through seminars, webinars and conferences, but my focus was on formal education and the need to get a degree. It was as if the point of schooling was the degree and not the deep understanding that comes with the application of concepts and knowledge. I was very focused on the idea that if you weren't going to earn a degree then there was no point in taking the course. Every class needed to be connected to a degree and you earned your degree for the express purpose of being more proficient at what you do or preparing for your next opportunity. My experiences have broadened my thinking in this regards. For the future, I believe that improving my Spanish language skills would be helpful and also fulfilling. Now I do not feel the need to earn a degree in Spanish to do that nor do I necessarily need to take on campus college courses to fulfill this expectation. I need to find the resources that fit my learning style and my situation and then put forth the effort to get it done. This is simpler and liberating and I now see myself as a lifelong learner with no end in sight.