The 6 Stages of Learning

Have you ever stopped to consider how you know what you know? In reality, you think, say, and do what you do because of what you have learned. Obviously, there have been some good lessons, some not-so-good ones, and even some lessons you seem to keep re-learning. So what is going on when you learn? There are many words and metaphors for the idea of learning. We can talk about knowledge, ideas, information, wisdom, intelligence, IQ, street smarts, on-the-job training, real-life experience, formal/informal learning, high school and college, and let’s not forget about the school of hard knocks. To me, knowledge is like a seed that you plant. If you value the learning process, you will plant your ideas and ask your questions with positive attention and conscious intention. You will enjoy watching your tiny seed grow into a big tree that continues to grow and branch out for an entire lifetime. You will get excited when you see new sprouts and connections burst forth.

I love learning, always have, always will. So much so, that my company name and logo is “Get Smart!” with a man and a woman reading a book under the tree of knowledge and wisdom. I am always surprised to learn that others don’t have the same desire to “get smart” as I do! I believe that it is easier for people to stay in the comfort zone of “I already know everything I need to get by” rather than to develop the beginner’s mind of “I don’t know much about this but I am willing to learn.” You can easily look at someone’s lifestyle and see the person who has adopted the “lifelong learning” mind-set---they are more fulfilled, successful, and alive. The truth is all human beings have an innate desire to learn and grow and stretch their minds, bodies, and souls, it’s just some people choose to make it more of a priority than others. Marie Evans said that, “Learning is the jewel casting brilliance into the future.” Something newly learned is a beautiful and bright (albeit invisible) thing to behold and truly does change the course of our lives. What follows are the six stages of learning. Think of something you are now learning and find out which stage you are in.

Stage 1 Awareness

In the first stage, you take notice of the concept/ idea because it raises your interest. You probably received the information from reading or hearing about it. For example, when you first heard about the internet, you probably had a vague notion of what it might be, but had no direct experience with it.

Stage 2 Comparison

In the second stage, you often seek to compare it with something else you know something about. This helps you to categorize and place it logically. When you learned of the internet, you probably compared it with other forms of technology or communications as a means of filtration and organization.

Stage 3 Exploration

In the third stage, you begin to play around with the concept/idea. You try it on for size in your mind to see if and where it fits. When you first went online to explore this thing called the internet, you began by “playing” with it, not taking it too seriously, in an effort to make the learning more enjoyable.

Stage 4 Application

In the fourth stage, you want to see how it applies to your own life. You start to do things with the information, such as write, talk, take a class, or somehow experience it. Now when you go on the internet, you are navigating to find useful information for your life.

Stage 5 Integration or Rejection

In the fifth stage, you either integrate or reject the original concept/idea. If you find the new knowledge useful, you will integrate it into your every day life. Again, if you found the internet valuable, you will be motivated to use it and integrate it. If not, you will decide to stop the learning process.

Stage 6 Creation

In the last stage, you have now developed additional insights about the original idea, and have a need to add, delete, or create something new based on your own storehouse of knowledge. For instance, you are now an internet afficienado, and decide to develop a software that allows people to make commissions from other people’s products or enables them to share their daily “blog.”

The term “knowledge-based economy” is popular right now, and in today’s constantly changing world, a key to success is no doubt the ability to learn. Because those who keep learning, keep earning and keep living happy and interesting lives. Mark Twain once said, “There is no security in life, only opportunity.” That being true now more than ever, the only real security we can give ourselves is a reserve of knowledge, experience, abilities, and a willingness to be a student of life, a person open to the awe of the world and who desires to learn something new every day. Note the distinction about learning and learned. The learned person feels he has completed the course. The learning person knows that she is still in process. There is also a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is about thinking, studying, and regurgitating someone else’s thoughts. Wisdom is about observing, reflecting, and absorbing your own thoughts and ideas. A Chinese proverb makes this very clear about learning, “To obtain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.” The smart student knows when to let old ideas and information go, to consciously delete them in order to make room for the current ideas. Just think about how internet dial-up is fast becoming a thing of the past and is being replaced with DSL. That is because someone thought of a better, faster way of doing the same thing. New ideas come and go as quickly as night and day. It will be the people who can take their creative ideas and go for it, who will succeed in our over-informed world. Know this. Knowledge will make you smart, but experience will make you wise. Remember - it is only through learning and growing that you can become wise - and it is a journey that you must take for yourself - it is not something that can be taught by someone else.

Michelle L. Casto, M.Ed. is a whole life coach, speaker, and author. She has written three self-help books and a dozen workbooks on life empowerment topics. Her coaching practice is Brightlight Coaching. She helps people come up with bright ideas for their life and empowers them to freely shine their bright light to the world. Visit virtually: www.getsmartseries.com www.brightlightcoach.com

Teaching a lesson on budgets that hits home

A report introduced in 2001 stated that 8.2 million Americans owed more money than they were worth. Simply stated, people just do not understand basic financial principles. This unfortunate epidemic is the result of inadequate training of finances in the home. Repeatedly, teachers are often asked to compensate for the education not found in the home and that is why there has been a national push to have financial literacy required in the classroom.

Recently, a middle school teacher contacted our office asking for suggestions on a different method of teaching her students about creating and managing a budget. The traditional methods of planning for an expense such as a vacation or computer were not working for her students. Although the students were beginning to understand the basic concepts, they were not able to apply their new found skills with practical experience.

We suggest teaching this important life skill with something more practical and familiar to you, your classroom budget. By engaging your students in creating the classroom budget will not only help develop their financial skill set, but they may also come away with a sense of appreciation of the resources and materials that are provided in the classroom.

This exercise will provide your students with an exposure to revenue and expenses, the concept of planning ahead, the process of determining priorities and how to manage their funds when cut back occur.

Teachers should break down the class into four small teams, Planners, Buyers, Writers and Auditors. Each team will be responsible for a specific function of your budget as determined by you.

Planners would work with you to determine which books, training material, educational aids and supplies that are needed for the next year.

Buyers would be responsible for finding and tabulating the costs of purchasing the material and supplies needed.

Writers would be responsible for compiling the budget and completing the final package to be presented to the department head or principal.

Auditors are responsible for keeping the Planners and Buyers under budget for each item that is requested. This group "confirms" that all expenses and bids are within reason and under budget.

After these tasks have been completed, request that your Auditors reduce the classroom budget by 10%. The task now for the Planners will be to prioritize which materials are needed, and at what numbers and costs. The Buyers will need to review, evaluate and choose similar products at a lower cost. The Writers will again prepare the final package, while the Auditors confirm that the classroom expenses are under budget.

The skills that are learned by the students while helping to create the classroom budget are transferable to situations outside the classroom. They will now know how to pre-plan purchases, work within a specific amount of money (income), evaluate expenses (living costs) and prepare for a budget cut (loss of job).

Timothy Liptrap, is VP of Education and Develoment for the free 101 Financial Lessons newsletter. Visit http://www.101financiallessons.com for more information. The newsletter provides teachers and parents materials and ideas to teach money.

College Degrees - Do You Need One?

The consistent rise of overall college tuition has given me reason to think about my own degree and what mine has meant to me and for me. Here are my thoughts on the matter.

I received a bachelor of arts degree in mass communications back in 1995. I've gone back and forth with myself over what purpose the degree has in my life. My initial impression was the degree is job related. I studied television and radio journalism in college, so my degree means I've had enough training to work in the radio or tv field. I was in fact able to get work in the radio business for 10 years. However, the work I was doing was totally unrelated to my degree. I have never worked in tv or radio journalism. None of the radio jobs I held for the 10 years I was in the business necessitated a degree. Several of my coworkers did not have degrees and held similar positions to myself.

After my radio stint, I decided to make a career switch to the IT field. I took some night classes, obtained a certification as an Oracle Database Administrator and began my job hunt. At this time, I began to focus more on my past work experience on my resume. I have always indicated I have a degree on the resume but it has been getting a lower priority the more time I have worked. My first employer in IT did not overtly require me to have a degree, but I believe they gave me more money that they would have if I did not have a degree.

My current employer did take notice of the subject of my degree (mass communications), which is the first time in my career that was focused on. My pay was somewhat more than my previous employer, which gives me the impression that my degree still has something to do with the extra salary.

I've had discussions with my parents in the past about "why did I get this degree?" While I initially thought the degree was directly correlated to your employment choice, I'm now under the belief that is not always the case. If you are getting a degree in accounting, pre-med, pre-law, then of course you're getting a degree predisposed to a certain line of work. However, there are numerous other degrees (liberal arts degrees like my mass communications for one) that often do not directly apply to a line of work.

So, the following two questions remain:

1) If you get a degree that is directly suited to a career, will that benefit you?

It seems to go without saying that a degree directly related to a career will suit you if you choose to pursue that career, and in some cases if you pursue a similar career (ex: my current job involves some writing, a skill I began developing while working on my degree).

2) If my degree doesn't have a direct correlation to a specific job, do I really need it?

I have asked myself this question pretty much since graduating college and I continue to ask myself this today. The selfish person in me would say "Don't waste your time - focus on what will provide you a career." However, the more philosophical side of me argues "Get the degree - life is an adventure and you are not obligated to be so short sighted to believe that everything you do should advance your career."

I make homebrew beer. Do you think that has anything to do with my degree or the work I do currently? Um...NO. I play trumpet. It hasn't come up at all at any job I've worked (except for maybe in a job interview here and there.) My point here is the experiences you get in life on the whole add up to make you who you are. You will pick up skills along the way that help you with work. You will also learn what you like to do, which is ultimately what you spend all that time working to make enough money (hopefully) to do.

So I say get the degree. Get financial aid if you need to - I've been paying off my loan ever since a few months after I graduated. Guess what? In a little over 3 years, the loan will be paid off and I'll still have the degree.

Paul Heingarten is a freelance author and entrepreneur. Take a look at his website at http://www.prhsolutions.com/blog.

How To Home School Your Children: The Basic Facts!

Wikipedia states that "Home education, also called homeschooling or home school, is an educational alternative in which children are educated at home by their parents, in contrast to the compulsory attendance which takes place in an institution with a campus such as a public school or private school."

Around the world Homeschooling has been increasing quite substantially over the last 4 years. In 2003, in the United States, approximately 1.1 million children were Home Schooled, up 29% from 850,000 in 1999. Recent figures show that Homeschooling in other Western Countries are also continuing to grow. For example, an estimated 50,000 children are considered "home-educated" in the United Kingdom; Australia - 26,500; and in Canada (as at 2001) it was estimated that 80,000 children were educated at home with the numbers continuing to increase.

Most home education advocates have individual motivations to home-educate. Academic and social results of home education are varied and are the source of vibrant debate. Some feel that they can more effectively tailor a student's academic program to suit an individual strengths and weaknesses, especially children who are gifted or have learning disabilities. Others are religious parents who see non-religious education as contrary to their moral or religious systems. Still others feel that the negative social pressures of schools, such as bullying, drugs, school violence, and other school-related problems, are impacting negatively to a child's development. Many parents simply like the idea of teaching their own children rather than letting someone else do so.

A common concern voiced about home-educated children is they lack the social interaction with students and society that a school environment provides. Many home-education families address these concerns by joining numerous organizations, including home-education cooperatives, independent study programs and specialized enrichment groups for physical education, art, music, and debate. Most are also active in community groups. Home-educated children generally socialize with other children the same way that school children do: outside of school, via personal visits and through sports teams, clubs, and religious groups.

The academic effectiveness of homeschooling is largely a settled issue. "Numerous studies have confirmed the academic integrity of home education programs, demonstrating that on average, home-educated students outperform their publicly-run school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across all subjects." The performance gaps between minorities and gender that plague publicly-run schools are virtually non-existent amongst home-educated students.

Notable home-educated individuals

• Thomas Edison, United States, scientist and inventor

• Alexander Graham Bell, Scotland, Inventor (Telephone, Hydrofoil)

• Dakota Fanning, United States, actress

• Hilary Duff, United States, Actress/Singer

• Charles Evans Hughes, United States, Governor of New York, United States Secretary of State, and Chief Justice of the United States

• Frankie Muniz, United States, Actor

• Rosa Parks, United States, civil rights activist

• Susan La Flesche Picotte, United States, first American Indian woman physician

• Woodrow Wilson, United States, the only United States President to hold a Ph.D.

• George Washington, United States, First United States President

• Abraham Lincoln, United States, President during American Civil War

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"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything learnt in school" - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

For more information on homeschooling, visit http://www.homeschooling-secrets-revealed.com

Homeschooling Curriculum - Are You Making The Right Choice?

After deciding to homeschool your child, you now to work out what you are going to teach them. There are many curriculum choices you can make. You can purchase pre-packaged curriculum, make your own curriculum, or you could even teach a combination of both. Some parents prefer to focus their teachings on their religious beliefs. However, it is important to keep an open mind and remember that your children are their own people and they should be taught about the world from many different perspectives. Remember that there is no "right" way to teach your children because the "right" way for one child may not be "right" for another. It is important to be flexible and change your curriculum to tailor to your children as you discover their individual requirements as they grow.

So what is Pre-Packaged Curriculum anyway? Well Pre-Packaged, "school in a box", or "all-in-one" Curriculum are comprehensive education packages that cover many subjects (usually an entire year worth). They contain all required books and materials. Some even include pencils and writing paper. The intent of the "school in a box" is to try to recreate the school environment in the home. They are typically based on the same subject-area expectations as public schools, which allows an easy transition into school after being home schooled, if desired. They are among the most expensive options for the homeschooled, but are easy to use and require minimal preparation.

The majority of today's home-educated students use an eclectic mix of materials for their Homeschooling needs. For example, they might use a pre-designed program for language, arts or mathematics, and fill in history with reading and field trips, art with classes at a community center, science through homeschool science clubs, physical education with memberships in local sports teams, etc. This has been proved to be one of the most successful ways of educating the Homeschooled child.

Home educators are also able to take advantage of educational programs at museums, community centers, athletic clubs, after-school programs, churches, science preserves, parks, and other community resources. Secondary school level students often take classes at community colleges, which typically have open admission policies.

One of the major benefits of Homeschooling is the ability to blend lessons using a central theme, for example, a study unit about Native Americans could combine lessons in: social studies - like how different tribes live now and lived prior to colonization; art - such as making Native American clothing; history of Native Americans in the US; reading from a specialized reading list; and the science of plants used by Native Americans. You could use this same technique on another study unit where you chose another broad topic to study.

Homeschooling also offers student paced learning. This is similar to "all-in-one" curriculum and is often referred to as "Paces". These workbooks allow the student to progress at an appropriate speed that suits their individual needs. They allow the student to master concepts, before moving on to the next subject, instead relying on the speed of the teacher and other students where they may move on to the next subject too quickly or not move on quickly enough.

Another form of Homeschooling is "Unschooling", that is, an area in which students are not directly instructed but encouraged to learn through exploring their interests. Known also as "interest-led" or "child-led" learning, Unschooling attempts to provide opportunities with games and real life problems where a child will learn without coercion.

Unschooling advocates claim that children learn best by doing. A child may learn reading and math skills by playing card games, better spelling and other writing skills because he's inspired to write a science fiction story for publication, or local history by following a zoning or historical-status dispute.

No matter which technique you decide to use when you start Homeschooling your children, you should remember to be flexible and revise your teaching choices, as you will need to adapt your curriculum to better tailor to your child's needs as they become apparent.

For more information on homeschooling visit http://www.homeschooling-secrets-revealed.com