Blog #2

          Education is a life-long learning process. Learning does not stop with a human being's age. I think Education is one of the keys to success. . Ken Robinson also says in his video, 'Do schools kill creativity' that everyone has an interest in education. We all do have interest. He further says that our education system is formed in such a way that it doesn't bring up the different talents in the children. This means it lacks creativity. Creativity should be as important  in education as literacy.Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. First, Language and Mathematics, second, Humanities and finally, Arts. (Art & Music than Drama & Dance) Ken questions, "Why not Dance?" Math is as important as Dance, but if you have an interest in learning music and dance, you will not get a job on those grounds. Some enjoy school while others feel like it is a burden. They do not enjoy doing it, but they just do it for the sake of getting a good job in the future. I also agree with  Mark Van Doren's statement in the article Happiness in Education  where he says, "Our best chance for happiness is Education." But how do we find Happiness in Education?

          I am a Visual and Kinesthetic learner. I learn better when I see or do things. I can work better in groups than on my own. I don't see myself the way as others see me. I am a very shy person, having a very low self-esteem and weak public-speaking skills. My parents and my in-laws never appreciated me for who I was. In fact, they always showed me my drawbacks. Even back home in my school, since I was shy I was always overlooked by my teachers. As Tal Ben - Shahar has mentioned in his article 'Happiness in Education' about the two models that show how students are motivated: the drowning model and the lovemaking model. I think I was like a drowning model in the context that I was drowning in work that I didn't enjoy and was motivated by the fear of failure. I used to be relieved and happy after my exams, but here in school I'm experiencing the opposite. I am being appreciated by my professors. I was so happy when I got an e-mail from my professor saying that I got the highest grade in my class for an assignment. I feel that my esteem is slowly rising high and is motivating me to learn and come to school. I think I have changed from the drowning model to the lovemaking model because I feel that I have developed a love for learning. I enjoy coming to school and know that it has both present and future benefits. As Tal Ben - Shahar says, "As in the drowning model, there is a desirable end goal, but in the lovemaking model, we derive satisfaction from everything we do along the way." Basically, at present, I feel satisfied and confident in everything that I do in school.

         My future educational goal is to become a ' registered nurse'. From my childhood, I had a strong feeling to help and care for the sick people. I think and feel that when a person is sick you have no self esteem, you can't fight a crippling disease, no one to make you feel special, everyone abandons you and as a patient you have to rely and listen to someone who is a stranger(nurse). So I think I would be the right fit, because I like to care and help those people in most need. I have started taking my pre-requisites(courses needed) to get into the Nursing program. I am going through the journey to achieve my goal(destination). During this process, I will try to come out of the shell, participate more in class discussions and try to build  my public speaking skills. Hopefully, Inshaallah(God Willing) If I become a nurse I think it will help me build my self esteem high as well as help  raise the patient's self-esteem too. So, I think this education and profession will make me happy in life. As Tal Ben has stated in his article, that if you have a clear goal in mind then you have the freedom to enjoy the journey.

          Hence psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains that having goals, having a clear sense of purpose is necessary in order to attain flow, According to him, "Flow is a state in which one is immersed in an experience that is rewarding in and of itself, a state in which we feel we are one with the experience,in which action and awareness are merged". Which means we derive pleasure or enjoy doing a particular task, we feel like we are absorbed in doing a particular thing for example, while talking to a friend or reading a book we are engrossed so much that we fail to hear anything and also we realize that hours have gone by when it seemed that only minutes had passed. These are some of the experiences of flow. When we are in a state of flow, we experience pleasure and perform at our best. In other words, we experience flow when the difficulty of the task and the level of our skills correlate with each other.

          To conclude,  " Human beings are created as such that we cannot stop learning. We learn about areas of information that we will never have personal contact with.For example, living in a submarine, or being an athlete in the olympics. The information we get will not even cover one- fourth of our brain cells. I think education is a privilege. I feel that we can find happiness in education by combining our learning styles as well as  love of learning together,also by creating environments at home and school that provide conditions which makes it easier to experience pleasure, meaning, as well as present and future benefits.