Learning and Enrichment

Dr. Maxine Greene, an exceptional educational philosopher, when asked what knowledge and skills are worthwhile learning, said this: "Those things that release more and more people for reflective encounters with a range of works of art, works that have the potential to awaken, to move persons to see, to hear, and to feel often in unexpected ways. Perceptive encounters with works of art can bring human beings in touch with themselves. We must awaken in order to continue our efforts to build a just, compassionate, and meaningful democracy. We must help students realize their deep connection to and responsibility for not only their own individual experience but also for other human beings who share this world."

Learning, of course, cannot be guaranteed. There are so many variables connected with “learning” that even in this day and age of academic redundancies, many “learning theories” still abound, and, like the existence of God, no one knows for certain why and how people of various backgrounds and dispositions learn anything. Learning can be measured but only in a rudimentary sort of way. Retention can be tested, but this is not the same thing as understanding. Understanding is a wholistic concept; retention deals with specificities and, even then, is hard to measure although measured perhaps more successfully than understanding. Nor can enrichment be guaranteed or tested. Enrichment is not necessarily a feeling that comes from knowing something or doing a good job at something. Perhaps enrichment is more an attitude or a spirit of “possibility” that sometimes transcends the materiality of educational or professional objectives and goals.

The idea of nuance is a most important aspect of learning and enrichment. The elimination or lack of attention to nuance may be what is wrong with higher education today, which is often far too specialized and shuns or ridicules liberal arts. A liberal arts education is important because it teaches us to think and to think expansively, to consider all the possibilities we can conceive of, and to think critically and not just blindly accept the fashionable or the current policies that are thrust upon us.

The philosophical and spiritual aspects of any educational endeavor are just as important as the objective facts themselves. Providing perspective and ideas that oppose policy and governance is just as importance as obedience to principles.

Enrichment deals with philosophies that accompany the operational goals of any profession or endeavor. Perhaps it is "accidental learning." Stimulating a hunger for more learning and understanding is the enrichment philosophy that should underpin everything we do.

Often, what you know today is obsolete tomorrow, but in many cases, what we know today is still knowable and durable tomorrow. The fundamentals do not change. What changes are technological advances, and even these move at a snail’s pace although it seems as though there is so much more available now than ever before, and, to some extent, that is true; however, what most professions and artistic endeavors can rely on is that the fundamentals do not change. For example, language may undergo some kinky and evolutionary morphings from time to time, but the fundamentals of grammar and punctuation still apply.

It is important to adopt a peaceful and righteous attitude (philosophy) toward any work so that one (a) is confident of the fundamentals and then (b) learns that dealing with contingencies is the solution to the puzzles and mysteries of being alive.

There has to be a certain reverence toward the complex processes of learning, understanding, and enrichment. It’s like a sacrament, so to speak, in that everything worthwhile is endowed with a rich history, a rich tradition, a rich present, and a rich future.

John Dewey believed, as did Jean-Paul Sartre, that what we become, what we make of ourselves, depends on what we do with our lives. What we do cannot be simply routine and mechanical; it must be conscious, interested, and committed. If we content ourselves with being behaving organisms rather than reflective persons engaged in ongoing and meaningful activity, the quality of our existence and self-hood becomes thin and pallid. We begin to resemble those T. S. Eliot called "hollow men" or those Thoreau described as living lives of "quiet desperation."

Where does a single human being inexorably stand between the original intent and the ultimate manifestation? In artistry. While many professions and endeavors are a science, many are also very much an art, and it is the artistry of one's profession or endeavor that ultimately leads to understanding and enrichment.