Me As A Learner Essay Examples

Learning for me has not just been a conscious thing. And I expect that’s much the same for most people. We are all different to each other, but as human beings we are all born with the same basic equipment, including the human brain, which is just like some marvellous computer. Although sometimes we don’t make any deliberate effort, our brain helps us to learn all the time we are awake. But not in the way we do in school or college or even in a place where we go to work. The learning process I mean is subconscious or automatic, including for example, the new knowledge you collect every day, like by driving down a street you know and seeing a new supermarket where there had not been one the last time you went to that area. Your brain grabs that information and stores it in your memory. That means you have learned something new. When you meet someone for the first time, your brain stores what they look like as well as the name they gave you when you were introduced. That is another learning experience. So, we are all learning, all the time – it’s actually not only an automatic process, it happens whether we want it to or not. Of course, we may soon forget a lot of the trivial information we learn in that way, especially if we don’t need it again for a while. In the example of the new supermarket mentioned, if you don’t pass that way again for a very long time, you might easily forget that you saw it before. However, your brain has not lost or deleted that information. If you pass that way again maybe months later, you will “recognize” it – your brain has found the information stored in your memory.
So I can say that I have learned something new every day of my life. Even in the mornings when I wake up in the same bedroom, I may notice one morning for the first time that the sun shining through the blinds is making slow-moving lines of bright spots on the opposite wall, an effect that I had never really noticed happen until this day.
But that is how humans learn. It is a process that continues through our lives, and is most important when we are young children, not only at school but everywhere including in the family home. It is there that we learn from our parents our life values and begin to learn social skills and to understand right from wrong. We also learn to communicate with each other by speaking. That particular learning is probably mostly a subconscious process. It is known that a young child’s brain learns things quicker and easier than older people, and probably gets much of what it needs to communicate without consciously thinking about it.
As far as what might be called formal learning is concerned, I suppose our years at school are when and where most of us who live in a civilized country, learn the most. In my case I can still remember my very first day at school, but not for what I may have learned. That memory has stayed in my mind because I was terrified to be “abandoned” by my mother in that new place. I suppose that was also another lesson for me – learning to deal with strangers, and discovering that I could really survive without my mother and usual protector for a few hours.
Now my years of schooling are mostly just a collection of vague memories. Like most people I seem to remember only the more unusual events, whether they are good or bad experiences. As a general comment, I think that I remember best the learning I had in the school subjects where I enjoyed my times in the classroom – either because that subject was especially interesting to me, or that I was good at it, or that the particular teacher and I got on better than average. For example, I was top in the art class and got a scholarship for an art college. Because of that art did not in any way seem like work, but was one of the classes that I really looked forward to. Compared with (say) math, it didn’t feel like hard work. On the other hand I was not good at sports, so did not really look forward to gym classes or school sports days. I wasn’t hugely overweight or anything, I think I just enjoyed the learning parts of school so much more.
I suppose I should say that my school years (from the age of about five to 16-17) were the years when I learned most. When I moved on to college, I found the learning not only narrower in scope because it was more specialized and there were less subjects to study, but there was also less formal discipline than there had been in school. However, that did help me to feel more grown up, having more freedom than I had been given in the years at school. I think I respected that new freedom, and probably benefited from it, though some people seemed to find it a way to avoid the actual learning part of college whenever they could.
One thing I have always had problems with is the exams. Whilst I enjoy the whole idea of learning, and have never found classroom tests particularly difficult (i.e. questions put by the teacher towards the end of the lesson), when it comes to the important exams I need as much last-minute revision time as I can find. Remembering every little bit of what I have been taught over the last semester is always a struggle for me. If I don’t have a few hours right before the exam to cram into my brain all the important stuff, I go blank and almost have a panic attack! It’s even worse if there are other exams close together. The strange thing is though, that once I’m sitting down in the exam room and start writing, the nerves seem to go away and I can get my head down, only starting to get worried again towards the end of the time allowed for that exam.
I like being in a classroom for my learning. A lot of folks these days do much of their learning online or doing correspondence courses, but I like the way that you can ask questions and bounce ideas around in the classroom, either between me and the teacher, or if it’s allowed, between all of us in the room. It’s often been the case that I might not fully understand something, so to be able to ask for it to be explained there and then is important in my way of learning. I think I’m also more likely to remember the answer afterwards.
My last few years at school were in a mixed boys and girls school. Some say that for teenagers this leads to distractions from the school work, which I’m sure it did, but on the other hand, by spending more time with them it helped us all to deal better with the opposite sex in normal life. I had friends who went to a boys-only school and could see they were more awkward and uncomfortable in a social situation with girls present.
I think all of us that go to school and college do so not just because we have to, but because we want to know more and to be more successful in adult life and in our chosen career as a result, whatever that career may be. I think we all tend to go for studying subjects that we enjoy most and that have solid connections with and are relevant to a planned future career. In my case for example, not being good at sports, I would have naturally avoided subjects connected with sport, having no intention of trying to be an athlete.
So I suppose that in higher education especially, my major purpose in learning is to know more about the things I need for the years ahead of me in my working life. That is not to say that learning more basic stuff, not necessarily connected with a job, is also important. For example, I may not be interested in a career in finance, but I do need to know enough math to be able to understand mortgages, interest rates, utilities costs, etc, etc. In other words, we all have to live in the real world after college, so learning enough about basic economics is – for me at least – part of the equipment I need for survival in an adult society.
But the outcome of all this learning (school, college, and perhaps even further, to a Master’s course for example) is not just the achievement of skill and high grades in my chosen subjects. Along the way I will have learned a great deal about myself and about dealing with people I have met – what are often referred to as “people skills.” For me, although I will possibly never again use some of the detail I have learned through my years in the education system, (some of it a struggle in the subjects I really did not enjoy) I would not consider any of that learning as wasted. Not only has it surely been part of my growing up, but all that detail contributes, even without me being aware of it and sometimes in tiny ways, to making me who I am today. And learning never stops. I know that I will carry on being a learner for the rest of my life.