Homebodies - We can all be life long learners
- Details
- Published on Sunday, January 25, 2015
By Rita Friesen
“Education has always been about learning to live a better life”. I wish that quote was one of my own but I found it on an online site. The author embraces many ideals and objectives about education and learning that I also hold dear.
My beloved was a life-long learner. He attended community college when he was 60 years young because he wanted to know how to repair alternators and generators. He used that skill well, serving a wide community with his knowledge and experience. Some of the last gifts he received were magazines and books. Even when sitting up became difficult and very tiring, he wanted to read. About Mennonite history, about antique autos and machines, and he really wanted to re-read Ben Hur.
Reflecting on the significance of the book, I can see how the strength and integrity of the protagonist challenged Ed to live a better life. He wanted to learn, to memorize, and use his abilities. The author of the article uses the term “wayfinders” and equates them to a GPS, a device to keep us on track and enable us to reach our destination. The wayfinders recommended are virtue, relationships, responsibility and judgement. As I deliberated on these four factors I applied them to my journey.
Virtue. Here I hear the echo of my father quoting from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Polonius is speaking to his son Laertes, giving him advice before he leaves for Paris: “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” Being true to ourselves means that we need to know what is important to us, and why. Silence and solitude often enable us to stop long enough to figure such stuff out.
Relationships. The poet John Donne: ‘No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” The poem shows how the loss of one diminishes the whole. We need to learn to live together. Here I quote again from the found article, “Therefore, sometimes overcoming our nature so that we can have good relationships is what it means to be an educated person.” I agree.
Responsibility. The scope of that word has changed through the ages. With instant access to information comes the knowledge that our world is a very interdependent entity, I believe our responsibility has become more pressing and more complex.
Judgement. Determining how to live a moral life. “Doing the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason.” We, the world, need more educated people. Not all education comes from the classroom. We can all be life long learners.
