Concluduction

// CONCLUDUCTION

Learning is greedy.

It is exploration of a territory, acquisition of precious minerals, integrating them, transforming them in our consciousness in order to manufacture new elements of knowledge, ready for export back into the vast machine of the social-rhetorical universe. It’s positively colonial. Now, while this view of learning is a bit tongue-in-cheek, it is interesting to think about the learning process as entirely dependent on values that seem so, well, imperial. In my first post that I wrote for this blog, I discovered (mid-post) certain latent ideological implications inherent in the name of the blog and in the literary characters I named my mascots. In that post, knowledge was also monetized, yet at that time, the acquisition and manufacturing process of knowledge were separate and under-theorized. The ideas of learning-as-knowledge creation, of “writing our way into expertise,” and indeed of writing as “a knowledge making activity,” had yet to be explored and acquired (WAC 39, NWWK 19-20). Yet returning to that process of acquisition, it is problematic because in order to acquire something, one must have a need or desire for it. Now that the reader has made it this far, I can rephrase my statement:

Learning is needful.

There is a need for a need in order for learning to occur. In the opening pages of How Learning Works, a key principle stated is "Students' motivation determines, directs, and sustains what they do learn" (HLW 5). By reflecting on one's needs and desires as a student (Why am I sitting in this class? What do I want to do with this content?) the crucial components of motivation and purpose are created. Once an individual determines their motivation, ownership and aquisition of knowledge becomes a much more focused and sustained activity. The course is no longer in the sole possession of the instructor. The student-agent explores, acquires, and repurposes content to fit their intellectual needs. However, this does not magically happen by shouting "let the colonization commence!" on the first day of class. Even a focused, self-reflective student will eschew productive learning activities if an instructor fails to encourage course ownership. (For my own experience with this as a student, read the second paragraph in Evolution of a Theory). The role of an instructor is to create a heuristic environment and explicitly and consistently promote student ownership of the content in ways that are meaningful to each student. Coming into Writing Theory and Practice, I naturally tried to make the course fit with "me," but if my instructor had ignored my individual motivations, and instead insisted that I apply the content in a way that was meaningful only to him, I would have had no choice but to comply. Now, I might be able to harvest some usable fragments from the prescribed experience, but ultimately the content I "learn" in an environment divorced from my own professional / academic needs and desires would quickly become unsustainable (and un-transferable) in the long run. It would be a false creation, proceeding (and receding) from my heat-oppress'd brain . But happily enough, I have been actively encouraged to take this course and mold it to fit my needs. I have thrown myself into the content with all the force of my professional dreams behind me. I have read every sentence with an ear to how I might appropriate, transform, and utilize certain ideas in meaningful ways. Such learning is ravenous, fueled by our own appetites. Such learning is greedy. And it is highly transferable and sustainable. By reflecting on its efficacy, I have internalized it, allowing it to theorize my own teaching style in Tolstoy and the Victorians.