Finding My Way…
One day, when I was driving to visit one of my friends in New Jersey, I got lost. I stopped a couple times to ask people. Luckily, I met a nice family at the gas station. With their help, I arrived at my friend’s house easily. I get lost not only on the road but also online sometimes.
When people ask about things, others naturally respond, “ google it.” The Internet has been around and has a lot of resources people can find for any purposes in their daily lives. However, how can I find my way to get what I need without getting lost following hyperlinks and spending so much time? Many people share the feeling of overwhelming to have so many possibilities with the hyperlinked information. It seems like we all have to be researchers and analysts in every day tasks. Can we have some kind of discipline to manage our time effectively and to find the right information?
Especially, in this evolving society with technology and new life styles, Personal Mastery is a vital discipline, which is one of the Five Disciplines from the book called Schools That Learn. “Personal mastery is a set of practice” that learners are encouraged to seek and sustain their interests and dreams “while cultivating an awareness of the current reality around them.”
This practice is very valuable in current education system as well. Student-centered learning is one approach to reshape the learning environment suitable for the new generations and the current society adapted with computer technology. That is focused on students’ needs and considered many social and human behavior developments. This learning approach requires learners to lead their own learning followed by their interests. Furthermore, in this learning process, learners are supposed to set their goals of learning, plan and choose practical activities to individualize their learning processes. This new approach of learning is very convincing in a way that seeks more of students’ ardent interests; however, the role of student on both personal mastery discipline and student-centered learning approach is obscure or very broad for a student to carry on without appropriate guidance by who are more experienced. Especially in a student-centered learning setting, recommended teacher' roles are a facilitator and a mentor or a coach to help students learning.
People’s lives are sequences of experiences and akin to driving to the destination where the people want to be. Although personal mastery is generally occurs through “solo reflection,” teachers or coaches’ attentive guide and shared experiences would be precious to students when they have no sense of direction.
photo by fabrisalvetti
5 comments:
I love the way you express yourself. It is very poetic. Personal mastery is such an important element for a student. As you stated, it is developed by the individual. However, it is the responsibility of the teacher to model how personal mastery can be achieved for those who lack the self awareness due to maturity or disability. Nice work!
The Internet can very easily be an overwhelming place. In the work of one educational theorist I have read, he compares getting information from the Internet is like getting water from a fire hydrant using a thimble.
Personal mastery could be an individual journey, but the role of the teacher must be open to change in order to accomodate the needs of the students he or she serves. Very interesting reading. You have given me much to think about.
You wrote a beautiful and personal response. It reminded me of the importance of working to involve students in their own growth and development. As a special education teacher part of my job involves writing individualized education plans for my students. I am always surprised by the number of school professionals who are reluctant to involve students in this process, and why all students, and not just those in special education, are not given the chance to establish goals and assess their own development. Children do not often consider personal mastery because educators seldom encourage them to do so. Your thoughtful response is a spark to do just that.
Hye Jung. Your creative style of writing and the added picture and text-to-speech feature increased reader interest. Great analogy. You raise an interesting point about searching resources on the internet, the endless possibilities of hyperlinks and the feelings of being overwhelmed. Maybe we need a GPS navigation system for the internet for the quickest route, or have a tiny url site for abbreviated searches. You clearly understand Senge's chapter on "Personal Mastery" and express the ideas well. Just great!
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