Here in Cambridge, the atmosphere is changing as the students are all arriving ready to start the new term this coming week, the holidays are over, and it's all back to work. The days are getting shorter and the wind is increasing. The most is made of the sunshine when it appears but primarily now it's raincoats and closed shoes that you see everywhere.
With all the students arriving for university it got me thinking about my own time at university in Australia. I have such a short attention span that I'm always amazed that I made it through my degree. I had to come up with a lot of different strategies to help me get there though.
The Institute for Learning Styles Research breaks up the way individuals learn into seven basic categories. These are print (read), aural (hear), visual (see), haptic (touch), interactive (repeat), kinesthetic (do), and olfactory (smell & taste). Everybody learns through a combination of these but work and learn better with some rather than others. For me, those some are haptic, kinesthetic, and interactive (with a lot of crossover into visual).
These aren't the ideal learning styles for studying at university - and honestly a lecture was way too long for me to stay attentive for (my mind drifted off topic). Taking notes helped but because I'm really not a print person, it didn't help a lot. I do like pictures though - and I can remember them - so sometimes I would take lecture notes in image form. This worked sometimes but not all topics lent themselves towards images (ie. I couldn't put pictures to math equations). Practicals were the best as this didn't require effort to change up the learning style given but just go with the flow (follow on) - unless they were computer based which goes pack to the print style learning - this wasn't so good. Sometimes I would imagine (picutre in my mind) I was doing the things I was putting into the computer for real - this helped. As I was studying a form of Earth Science sometimes I would take a 'field trip' to an area like that which we were currently studying (beach, mountains, lakes, etc.)to see and feel just what I was looking at on a page - somehow this made it make much more sense. One other method I came up with was to sometimes 'act out' my lectures - go back over notes and put movements or expression into it to help me remember; or sometimes I would write the information (data, study material, lectures) into a song against an easy tune to hum.
This last 'method' is something which has stuck with me but in a different way, even though I did not do it a lot. When I have a slightly quieter time in my day, like when riding from one place to another, or doing the dishes or some gardening, I often find myself making up tunes to either go along with my current mood, or mimic (parallel, copy) my day so far. It's like I'm in tune with the world - and this is my tune which works together with everyone else's to make a wonderful melody (tune) of life. But sometimes I have an off day, it just wasn't quite right, and there just isn't a tune which fits, it's like you're suddenly out of tune - like you're separate from everything else.
It's on these days, when I feel down, out of touch, not quite right, lonely, isolated, like a floating island - on these days that I remember that there is so much more than just now, and that I am so much more than what's now. I remember that we are made in God's image (Genesis 1:27), that we are loved by Him (Romans 5:8), that we have a future beyond here and now (John 3:16, 1 Peter 1:3-5), and that nothing can ever separate us from this (Romans 8:38-39). And the great thing is that I don't need to learn these things the same way I had to learn the things for my degree because these things are shown to me every day through my relationship with God, through Jesus, by the Holy Spirit. The same way I don't need to learn that my family loves me because they show me every time I talk to them.
I love learning things but even better is to know something with such certainty because it is shown to you again and again, without fail. I also love to be 'in tune' with the world and what's around me, but when I'm not I still know that God will always be there to take my off beat ways and show me his own rhythm to follow - this is the most important one in my books (my opinion).
What do you think about this?
What do you think about this?
God Bless
PS - sorry, I started rambling (going on and on) a little again
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