On Learning

At lunch, we were talking about education and its purpose. I had mentioned to a friend that I was working towards my masters and she started talking about getting a doctorate (she's already completed her masters). From what she said, it involved lots of research, publishing, and college level teaching. She is very interested in taking this step eventually.

Not me. I want my education to add new things to my knowledge base. I would rather be a Jack-of-all-Trades than an expert in anything. I am working towards my masters because there are benefits beyond just the educational ones. Instead of going for a doctorate, I suspect I will start to branch out into other fields - all related to my teaching in some way, of course.

I am already doing this on a very basic/relaxed level, much of it self-taught. My sewing, my guitar, my interest in Spanish - all are attempts to make myself both more accessible to students and more capable of reaching them. Since I intend to work in a classroom setting rather than an administrative/scientific/collegiate one, I think breadth is more important than depth. I don't ever want to get so far into the theory of what I do that I forget about the practice of it.

I happened to mention to Mikey that computer programming might be something I could get into someday. Being an International Man of Action, he offered to start teaching me immediately. There was much sharing of knowledge for the next 2 hours.


Eventually, I was able to create a black screen with a green line on it.


Then I made several lines, positioned in such a way as to get a pretty green rectangle out of them.


The coolest part was making the rectangle drift off to one side. We even messed around with the refresh so it looked really cool.