Bad/Good Learning Experiences

I thrive on positive encouragement and I learn at my best when I actually want to learn the thing that I’m learning. This has been the case my whole life and is illustrated by my good and bad learning experiences.

BAD LEARNING EXPERIENCE
Latin GCSE is my worst learning experience. I didn’t really want to do it, but my mother was very keen for me to. It didn’t fit into the school timetable so my friend and I did it by ourselves as an extra GCSE, arriving at 7.30am (!) twice a week to learn before school began. The teacher made us sit and do translation/dictation work and silent reading. That was it. There was no discussion or variation in activity, no positive encouragement or opportunity for our own ideas to be aired and developed. It was a very demoralising experience and my worst GCSE result.

GOOD LEARNING EXPERIENCE
My good learning experience is all three years of the Philosophy part of my Music and Philosophy BA. I loved the discussion in seminars and the way that everyone’s contributions were accepted - even if you gave a factually incorrect answer, you were led to develop your thoughts and get to the right answer through question-led discussion. Everyone learnt from each other. I enjoyed the nature of the work - how it was rooted in strict logic, but demanded great creativity - and I had the freedom to focus on the bits I wanted to focus on and ignore the parts I was less interested in. The tutors and lecturers were very encouraging and, although it was a lot of hard work and required deep thought and concentration, everything was taught in a light-hearted way.

Louise