learning

Are you a curious person? If so, does this help you learn more? Do you think it is a blessing or a burden? How can you harness it to educate yourself, in the fullest sense of the word. What is learning?

These questions and more are examined in the learning biography I’ve just submitted to Sussex University’s Institute of Innovation in Education towards an MA in Person-Centred Education.

The language is somewhat academic, but there are lots of poetic moments. That’s integration for you!

It was a transformative process of deep learning, and testimony to the benefits of person-centred education, despite the university’s inevitable challenges in embracing the whole person.
Here’s the first page and the full .pdf

Towards Integrated Learner Curiosity

We need to create a culture that leaves room for the constant “contamination” of a hundred subjective and objective experiences, in an atmosphere of reciprocal help and socialisation. Implicit in this thesis is a decisive response to a child’s need to feel whole.

Feeling whole is a biological and cultural necessity for the child (and also for the adult). It is a vital state of well-being (Malaguzzi in Reggio Children 1996, p 34).

Synopsis

This learning biography uses narrative to explore personal knowledge being formed about the cause, nature and function of curiosity and its relationship to learning, within a cycle of inquiry into spirituality.

Looking closely at pedagogues Paulo Freire and within the Reggio Children project, along with psychologists and philosophers such as Carl Rodgers and John Macmurray, it begins to articulate a vision of integrated learner curiosity and a personal expression of an ancient way of looking at knowledge.

It also critiques a university’s early beginnings in practicing emerging theories of person-centred education and challenges academia to embrace the potential of the Reggio “hundred languages” in understanding adult learning.

…………………..

Having lived a life rich with curiosity and learning, I am now curious about curiosity. From my earliest memories, I engaged deeply with the world around me. I have been highly motivated to learn through being curious. I have felt great joy and great sadness through this trait and state, and have come to embrace it – and consciously, carefully harness this Promethean flame.

More…
Learning Biography