What have you learned today? What have you learned lately? Do you remember what it is like to learn a new thing? Do you remember how difficult, frustrating, excruciatingly embarrassing it can be? Do you remember the moment you realized what it was about? Wasn’t it like an epiphany? Like everything you had heard so far, suddenly made sense? What was it that kept you going? That didn’t allow you to quit the moment it got so difficult? And who taught you? Did you teach yourself or did you have a good teacher? Did you by any chance have an exceptional teacher?

 

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

These were all the questions that came to my mind when I watched this beautiful video found on Vimeo. I suggest you watch the other ones too (MOVE and EAT) since I know you being the teacher you are, you are going to find hundreds of educational uses for them. As for here I am going to share one of my favourite learning experiences, one that was many years ago but is still as vivid inside me as then: Learning to fly, or to be more accurate to paraglide!

It was more than ten years ago that I went into paragliding and for a few years I was really immersed into it. I learned how to fly got my first level certificate and flew from Mt Olympus and Mt Voras here in Greece. I will never forget what it was like and I will never forget what  the learning experience either. The instructor was a very patient person who first and foremost taught us how to be safe. The fact that we have remained friends after all these years says something about the importance of the relationship. But what I most remember was my willingness to persist. I think this was what I learned best that period. That if you persist long enough then things become really simple. That if you keep running, you will take off. That if you don’t let the mountain scare you, you will fly over it!

I know I am not saying anything original, it’s in all the books about motivation, educational psychology and theories of learning: the people who are experts in something are just the people who had the persistence to do something long enough. Something like 10,000 hours is considered long enough. Of course I didn’t become an expert in paragliding. At some point I stopped practicing. I imagine that if I started again now I would need months to get to the same level. But the learning is here, it’s inside me. And every time one of my students says, “it’s too difficult miss”, or “I can’t do that teacher”, I remember. And I tell them: don’t stop now!

I would really love to hear your opinions here at the comments or even better in your blog. It seems that everyone is starting a challenge these days so this is mine: What was the most exceptional learning experience you ever had? What will you always remember? Let’s use this hashtag #learnchallenge