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
