Mushrooms, balseros, and a dream: How I learned Spanish

One night while living on a precipice high above the Monongahela River on Pittsburgh's south side, I ate half a bag of psychedelic mushrooms. I tripped alone. First, I saw fractals forming on my ceiling so intensely that I became sick. I made it to a small deck on the side rear of the house before puking. The deck was three stories off the ground even thought it was technically on the first floor.

After all the vomiting was done, I lifted my head and looked the straight across the 18th Street ravine. There I saw a great cement amd steel city grow out of the graves of those dead for centuries. The cemetery was vibrant, tall, and growing. 

Instantly I understood that time is not a linear construct and that the dead and living co-mingle daily, each learning from the other, each who  are on their own journey through whatever existence really is. Finite concepts all collapsed to reveal there are truly no limits except those imposed by universal fears. That greatest fear, the one at the root of all fears, is death. But what if death really does not exist in the scope of all time?

Yeah, good shrooms. Suffice to say, a year later I find myself driving, my car pointed for the keys. I made it across the seven mile bridge Just Before Dawn and laying on my windshield catch some z's before heading on to Bahia Honda, where I planned on camping. Eventually I settled in South Beach - a place where, in 1996, English was nothing more than a second language as thousands of Cuban balseros were on the front line of the coming Latin Invasion.

MORE TO COME

Teaching and Learning is a Never-ending Cycle

While in the classroom last night, the second night of a five-week intro to computers class for adults here in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston, I was brought back to the first real computer class I ever took in 1991. I was a freshman at a large liberal arts college located in Western Pennsylvania. The classroom was huge and filled with the latest PCs, all linked to a mainframe. The teaching style of my instructor was impersonal, but he got the job done. And we all seemed to learn fairly quickly, even though many of us were absolute beginners.

Sure, I'd been exposed to computers a few times before then - in elementary school we'd watched amazing documentaries about how computers were becoming personal, I'd played Zork on an Apple IIe, I'd sat at a friend's house and watched as he used the Atari 2600 to learn the elements of basic programming, and I'd even learned how to count with ones and o's in math class. But prior to that class - Introduction to Microcomputers - I could do all the school tasks I needed to with a GE typewriter or Brother word processor and a library card.

The typing skills I'd learned in 10th grade served me well for learning computers. Meanwhile, most of my students are hunt and peck types. I have an outline for teaching this class. I've created lesson plans. But the classroom has a life of its own. And this week I find I need to figure out how to get two of my students to simply use the mouse correctly while the rest of the class is chomping at the bit for something they don't already know.

I love my students. There's something so soft and human about teaching. There's that point every human reaches when he has to admit he doesn't know something that he desperately wants to know, but doesn't know how to get there. Then, the teacher lights the path.

Teaching computers is similar to teaching spoken language in many aspects. For both there are the technical subtleties of body posture and movement - in the mouth, face and hands primarily for language and the hands, back and eyes for computers. And for both of these, there is the foundational aspect of guiding the student to a more perceptive life, a life awakened to ongoing, moment-by-moment learning.

It excites me to think that in a few years these folks will be fully proficient and doing some amazing things that will make them feel more connected with the rest of the world, and be somewhat more on the "inside" of modern times. That's all any of us wants, is to not be left behind.

Philosophy on Lifelong Learning

By Brian D. Schwarz

Learning must be a lifelong pursuit
If life is to have any meaning
Find yourself a mentor, because not
Everything is simple, and time is fleeting
Look inward for context to learn new things
Owe much to imagination and needing
Now is the time, and there's no place like here
Give up on excuses; start leading

Love your community and those around you
Every one of us deserves to be believed in
And if you're fortunate enough to have the skills
Recharge the people and teach them
Nothing's more gratifying than changing a life
In all of us lies the power to care
Never again say, "I'll wait 'til tomorrow"
Go the distance; Learn, teach, share

Don't believe teachers who make you feel dumb

I was interested in andragogy long before I ever knew what it was. I struggled throughout all eight years of my undergraduate career, always feeling like I didn't have much choice in what I was studying, let alone how I was to study. It all seemed so predetermined. You go to a boring lecture for three hours per week, you read a bunch of books selected by some old curmudgeonly scholar, and finally, you subject yourself two or three essays and a barrage of multiple choice questions somehow help the curmudgeon determine whether you "got it" or not.

By the sixth year of my studies, I was feeling pretty much like an idiot. Maybe that was because I spent much of my intellect trying to invent new ways to keep myself from being ejected from the university. It's not that I liked being there so much; I just didn't know where else I was supposed to go. Besides, if I left school, I could no longer be part of student government, write for the school newspaper, change people's views about sexual identity as a gay activist or volunteer on the activities board; what's worse, I wouldn't have access to the library, where I'd often spend countless hours reading everything but the books on my professor's tired and depressing reserve list.

The funny thing was, I was engaged in learning the entire time I was at school, even if my transcript was taking more hits than Iraqi civilians during the Second Battle of Fallujah. It's just that no one was recognizing me for what I was learning. How could they? The system was stacked against an independent learner like myself. There was no way, not even if they tried, they could reward me for consistently drawing outside of the academic lines.

Feeling like a dullard, I dropped out of school with one semester to go (or did they throw me out, I can't recall). I escaped to Miami and landed alongside thousands of Cuban rafters somewhere under the shade of the palms on a Miami Beach perched on the precipice of redevelopment. Flop houses were all over the place, and not a word of English could be heard anywhere from Ocean Drive to Alton Road, from 1st Street to 85th. So I picked up a bilingual dictionary, moved in with the first guy I connected with on a non-linguistic level, and started to take part in an authentic learning experience. And without the help of any teachers or academic tutors (relying totally on the kindness of strangers I'd meet along the way), I became nearly fluent in Spanish in less than eight months.

I returned to my university at the end of the most cerebrally stimulating eight months with a new passion for learning. I got tested by the Spanish department, and pulled off an "intermediate mid" rating from a very skeptical and crusty old professor. I ultimately made my way through my last year of college, keeping my grades at a solid B. That is until the very end. I procrastinated on a huge assignment during my last class (which took place during another stimulating authentic learning experience - this time in central Mexico) and ended up with an F as the final grade on my transcript. A fitting send off, I suppose, for the guy who made it through to the end in spite of the system that was seemingly designed to see him fail.

Anyway, that's where my interest in andragogy was born. And that's when I began to take control of my own learning (I'll talk more about this later).

When Malcolm Knowles first noticed at a YMCA in 1946 that adults learn differently than children, he began a slow revolution in education that even still has not quite caught up to the mainstream. But it's getting there. And as the number of non-traditional professional educators grows, this revolution has the potential to impact adults and the societies they influence for generations to come.

This blog is dedicated to all of the people out there who have been disenfranchised from the traditional educational system and are seeking recognition for their own unique passions for learning, and to those who are committed now to guiding the way. For more information about andragogy, check out these links:

http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed00/fidishun.htm
http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/andragogy/index.htm