Tag: Learning

Playing by your Strengths

As a student, I have always hated examinations and graded tests and quizzes. In general, I just hated to be graded for my learning. It was always a disappointment to see my grades no matter how much I have enjoyed the subject. I could have been performing to the best of my abilities and the 85 would still be burning through my report card as an underwhelming marker and measure for everything that I thought I enjoyed. And then there are also times when I would be “winging it” and couldn’t care less about what the subject matter had for me, and yet would receive a whopping 97. Sure, it makes me smile inwardly, but the sense of achievement feels quite lacking.

Because of this concentration of making everything very numerical in their best effort to standardize something as arbitrary as interest or creativity, students feel like robots who are tasked to continue education for the sake of, rather than enjoying the opportunity for learning. One great example of this phenomenon would be this video: (to insert video, still looking for the link)

Drills, practice sets, and activities in the classroom are always framed in a way that encourages good performance in summative assessments at the end of the year. A good score on the assessment would not only make the student proud, the teacher feel good, but also boost enrollment for the institution that hosts them both. But is this really all there is to an education?

I have enjoyed numerous activities in school as well, and ironically, the activities I enjoyed most were those that were not quantified and were not reflected in my overall grades. I’ve enjoyed participating in school fairs as we would as a class create booths and make games for children to play. Booths were a fundraising contest usually for a charity that is in most need for that year. We pride ourselves in being able to market our booths, earn money for a charity and win “best designed booth” or “most customers” and the like. The sense of achievement is alive and full in this endeavor.

However, as I am now part of the educating team, I’ve realized that assessments such as this would be a nightmare to quantify, and quantification is an unavoidable part of the education system. It also highly depends on the current subjects that have been established for years and years. Our power lies in the ability to make assessments fun and interesting, but our problem would be in translating this into final grades.

If only we could shift the understanding of an education from quantifiable standardization into solidifying learning and honing the practice of skill sets, maybe our report cards would become less of the meaningless jumble of numbers, but more like a narrative report similar to a psychological report that shows strengths and areas of improvement of each individual. If this is to be done, we might need a 1:10 teacher to student ratio—and you know, that might not be a bad thing at all!

Learning from Puppies

A little more than 5 years ago, I adopted a shihtzu-lhasa apso mix puppy that was living in really bad conditions. His owner had abandoned him when he became too rowdy around his daughters. When I took the puppy in, I was desperate for the puppy to learn how to behave the way I expected all my domesticated dogs to behave. 

Learning as a product of conscious effort

I was taking up my psychology degree then, and I would use the famous techniques in the study of learned behavior, such as Classical Conditioning, where I would intentionally fill a large basin of water and tap it three (3) times every single time before I gave him a bath. After a while, I just needed to tap the basin and my dog would come find me for his bath. Three years in and my dog learned to come find me after hearing the faucet filling up the basin with water.

But the puppy, whom we fondly named “Panget,” had learned behaviors from his previous owner which we struggled with, which was why I used Operant Conditioning to force him to unlearn these bad behaviors. I would scold him when he did his “business” inside the house, and also praise him when he did it outside the house.

Learning as a product of unconscious effort

Panget would learn on his own by observing my other domesticated dog, “Whitney”. Since Whitney lived with us right after she was born, we did not struggle with any bad behaviors that she needed to unlearn. Panget had also taken Whitney as a role-model, often mirroring the observed behavior which guaranteed praise, affection, and treats from us.

One particular memorable incident was when Panget had observed that Whitney would be patiently waiting beside my dad as we ate dinner at the table, and at the end of each meal, Whitney would be able to get scraps due to being patient. I believe that Panget was able to deduce that by doing so, he would be able to get treats as well. Panget would then patiently sit beside my dad to wait for the scraps.

You might think that this is just a dog’s plain instinct to wait for food; however, it is quite funny to note that both Whitney and Panget would never wait beside my mom. I believe that this is because that both of them never observed her to give any kind of reward for the waiting behavior!

Learning as a continuous process

Throughout the years, however, I found that it was actually observational learning that had stuck better. The two methods worked fine, but it had to be repeatedly done for Panget to remember what was expected behavior. There are days where he would revert to his old ways, and we would struggle to teach him again. There are also instances where Whitney would pick up Panget’s bad behaviors and we would have to force her to unlearn them. This is why learning is a never-ending process – as long as our brain receives data to process, we continue to adapt and learn.