Learning to Live
By Amanda Brown
To be a life-long learner is imperative in life. It encompasses one’s will to live. It encompasses one’s desire to live a full purpose driven life. I believe it even encompasses one’s faith.
As a life-long learner, I have decided that every day is going to be an educational day. I am going to strive to learn something that is going to better myself that in turn will help me to better my family, my community, my classroom, my church/congregation, my society, or even my world. Some may question my ability to impact the world, but we have learned that the access of the World Wide Web makes this world a rather small and conquerable place. So yes, I can even impact the world!
As a life-long learner, I recognize that each day of my life is going to bring forth new challenges in every aspect of my life and I dedicated to discovering new ways to go about resolving those issues; not just at a surface level, but from deep down at the root. My psychology minor helps me to help the mental and behavioral aspect of my students, family, colleagues, and friends. My English major helps me to help develop their diction and rhetoric to better communicate themselves, their thoughts, who they are, validate themselves with their immediate and extended world’s that they find themselves interactive with on a daily basis. My new found Technological education, helps me to reach more students, more efficiently, more in-depth, become more accessible to them, in more variety of ways.
To be a life-long learner is inspiring. Our community values education. In fact, my father often told me, “knowledge is power”. And, I believe he is correct. The more you know, the more you grow is another saying. And it is no hidden fact that throughout our American history if one group of people wanted to monopolize and dominate another, the first thing they took was their education. Thus, education became a valued commodity within our society. We pay more as a customer to those with more education in the field that we desire assistance in. For example, if I am ill and need surgery, I am going to seek out the most well educated doctor that doesn’t only have an extensive educational background, but can also prove that he has continued to stay up to date in all his medical teachings so that I know that my life is in good hands. Well, being a teacher is no different. Not only do I need to have an extensive educational background as a foundation to jump from, but I also need to continue my education throughout my career in order to consider myself up-to-date on all the latest processes and procedures developed to best help educate students. To continue to learn and desire to learn at this magnitude takes a lot of effort, time, and dedication. However, it is often said that anything worth having in this world will also take hard work, time, and dedication. And, I believe an educated youth who feel empowered to be what ever it is they believe they were born destined to be is definitely worth it. Thus, that is why I consider being a life-long learner to be inspiring, because it takes hard work, time, and dedication; a lot of which many people to don’t possess or desire to put forth after a certain point in their life. It is very similar to staying fit and healthy via a daily healthy eating habit and exercise. Most Americans are known for being obese, out of shape, and consuming unhealthy and poor food choices, thus we idolize the skinny, fit, and healthy personas portrayed on the magazine covers, televisions shows, and the media at larges. We realize that it takes discipline and hard work in order to achieve such a physique and thus become inspired by those that are actually able to obtain it. To be a life-long learner is similar to mental discipline of an healthy well-bodied American; hopeforming and desired.
Going hand-in-hand with inspiring, to be a life-long learner also encompasses one’s faith. The discipline and mind-set that it takes to truly be a life-long learner does not develop in the course of one day and it is not always an easy journey. To be a life-long learner is often times discouraging, frustrating, and includes a lot of headache trying to develop new ways to solve old problems. For me, it is my faith that helps me stay the course and stay focused on my greater goal and purpose in life that fuels my energy to continue to press on and realize that life-learning is a race worth running. The daily impact that I’m able to make with my wealth of knowledge that continues to grow, I believe is definitely significant to the world. The youths’ lives that I am able to touch and inspire each day and breath life into via my prayers, and encouragement, and belief that they each are something great gaining the building blocks to stand on one day to proclaim their greatness to the world is what drives my desire to continue to be a life-long learner. God allows me to be thirsty for the knowledge and be quenched by obtaining it and sharing it to better help others. I facilitate this process with the agape love of Christ and it flows prolifically from me to any being I’m able to touch. Life-long learner…it’s who I am.