Week 4 Reflection: Learn Always by Jennifer Rimnyak
For my review this week, I chose a teacher's blog entry in which she compares an adult coloring book to lessons she has learned while teaching. The title of the blog post is Staying Inside the Lines: Reflections on Learning from my adult Colouring Book and was written by Jennifer Rimnyak. This entry comes from her blog called Learn Always. She begins by stating that she has never been good at visual arts like drawing or painting.
She first reflects on "the messiness and scariness of true learning." She recounts that as a child and even an adult, she was good at a lot of things naturally but anything she did not easily learn, she would give up. She said that she has always loved to learn, but recently realized that she loves the "easy, neat kind." She finally was forced to face learning that was hard for her without being able to give up in a college math class that she needed to take for her minor. She realized that this "messier" type of learning is much more satisfying in the end. She is considering her newly-found interest in this adult coloring book to be another step towards pushing herself to truly learn. Her second reflection is on perfectionism. Jennifer says that as she is coloring in her book, she cringes every time she goes outside of the lines even though it is inevitable with the small intricate patterns. However, when she pulls the book back and looks at the full picture, she doesn't see the mistakes, just a beautiful drawing. She admits that as teenager, she was an extreme perfectionist. Although she said that she still is from time to time, teaching has changed that mindset for the most part. She states that she now realizes, and helps her students to realize, that perfection is not an ultimate or attainable goal. There will always still be learning to be done. She instead wants her students to focus on continuing to learn, improve, and reflect on everything. She teaches French class and says that her and her students will have conversations with one another in French. She says that at the end of the day, everyone (even her) will make small mistakes but the overall message is clear. She understand that this is what is truly important. Learning is more important than perfection. I chose this blog entry because I love how she connects two completely unrelated things in such an awesome way. I also found her reflections on teaching to be helpful because both of these things are issues that I sometimes struggle with. I have always been somewhat of a perfectionist, and can definitely recall many times that I have given up on learning something when it became to difficult. I think that as educators and future educators we could all learn something from this post. I would say that overall the most important message to take away is that learning will always be what matters the most. Jennifer's Blog Learn Always: https://learn-always.com/ This Entry: https://learn-always.com/2016/01/13/staying-inside-the-lines-reflections-on-learning-from-my-adult-colouring-book/ |