Enthusiastic

A week ago I finished an 8 days seminar for trainers. A wonderful intensive experience. As a team we were very happy with the outcome but also the participants wrote extremely positive evaluations. Trying since then to analyse why it was good, what made it that people really had the feeling they were learning. What popped up all the time in comments that participants made were the word 'personal' and 'intensive'. Which I recognised because these were exactly describing my feeling. To be honest I was exhausted after the seminar and needed quite some extra hours of sleep. Not because I didn't sleep enough during the seminar but because of the intensity. Intensity which was a lot about personal things, choices, fears, emotions, also a lot of fun. Very brave people that took the chance to open up, to show themselves, to question themselves, to look for support, to give support.... 

It's a wonderful mix of all these things that made it great. And it's awesome to be part of that. Although I'm paid there to be a trainer I learned a lot. (well...maybe the 'although' is absolutely the wrong term here..)

At the same time it was more obvious then ever that people learned completely different things, had different goals, different paths. Well... I'm not sure I have really an overview of what people learned.

Of course it was all related in one way or another to 'being a trainer' but you can relate many things to that. I also think it's very OK that people do different things...I even think trying to make them learn all the same would be really a big mistake.

From the trainers' point of view it made me even more clear that learning happens mainly because of the 'right' atmosphere, climate, dynamics...whatever you name it. When human beings find themselves in a situation where a certain level of safety, trust and challenges are provided they start to learn! It's just in our nature...a human need.

Well...maybe not all that clear...just very enthusiastic at this moment...

My main learning point by the way was around 'self-perception' and 'learning'. Not that I concluded something there but in my Personal Learning and Memory Book I made some notes and questions. Will come back to that later! 

To write...

If my learning is connected to my writing here on the blog I haven't learned anything in the last 5 months! Writing at this moment a chapter about how important it is to document your learning, to write it down. So... a good moment to walk the talk. Anyway it's the beginning of a new year so also the time to take up things again. But I'm not going to make a list containing all the things I want to learn till the summer of 2011. That's something I learned: it's easy to make lists but there's where it ends for me. It doesn't function.

My plan for the coming period is exactly what I'm doing now: writing down daily, weekly what has been learned. Or maybe that's already to ambitious. Writing down experiences, questions, observations is probably more realistic and more interesting. Becoming more and more aware that this is the essential element in learning: reflecting, giving words to experiences, becoming aware. Not a very structured and planned way of learning but maybe that's how life is; unplanned and only a little bit structured.

It doesn't mean that I don't have wishes, desires and needs towards learning new things. For example I'm totally into playing the guitar in the last months and I'm getting better every day. But I don't have to write that down in a plan because I just play every day. To write down that I want to improve my Italian doesn't make my Italian better.

So...writing down things is my objective for the coming time. Well...accompanied by some thinking of course. Not all on this blog, would be too much for this blog I guess. I will buy myself a nice, easy to take with you, notebook to write. Old fashioned with a pencil! And then there is still my Dutch blog and Twitter!

Life is wonderful these days when you want to write!!! You will read from me!

Being a participant

Spend five days last week being a participant! Should do that more often. It's nice to be a participant. No responsibility for programmes, materials, the number of markers, availability of the beamer...only responsible for my self!

The topic was 'assessment of learning'. How do you know you learned something? How can you show?

At the end of every day writing in my 'learning diary'. To be honest the first time I did so. In the last years handed out many many of these diaries to participants but never used one myself. And I liked it. The same for being in a learning trio with two 'learning friends for the week'. Meeting each other after writing in the diary.

Not that I could write in my diary 'what I learned', neither could I tell my learning friends. I could describe my thinking during the days but that didn't end in 'Yes I learned this'. It ended in questions, many questions. So my main result of the five days is having even more questions then I had before. And I'm quite happy with that. The questions will give some more guidance to further search and learning.

Making wonderful progress in my playing the guitar. There I have clear questions and I get the answers easily. It's all much more simple. Looking for the chords and licks, finding them somewhere on the net and then practicing how to play them. Important to do that in the right balance and pace. You can find hundreds of chords but then you still have to make your fingers find the right position to play them and to change quickly from one chord to an other. Just doing it a lot helps! Don't need a diary for that.

Blisters on my fingers

I'm learning!!! Planned.... you could say structured...motivated..all by my self...using the right resources...

A week ago I bought myself an electric guitar and a little Chinese amplifier. Had seen the guitar in a shop in the village here some time ago. Then looked up the brand (Le Marquis NY) on some websites and they said it was quite good. So...now it's mine!!

I have been playing the guitar but that was about 25 years ago.

I'm playing now every day, finding new chords, practicing licks....blisters on my fingers!

The wonderful thing is the combination with my Mac. In Garageband you can find all the guitar effects you want and even make your own. And.... also guitar lessons in Garageband! It's wonderful. For 4.95 you buy a lesson from Sting! (well..I thought he played the base...but ok).Next to that a lot to find on Youtube where many people want to share their guitar competences with the rest of the world. Well... some of them maybe better should focus on something else but still a lot of good stuff to find there.

This evening I've been playing the blues with the Garageband programme, a whole band playing and you just plug in. But then you can also join a rock band, a latin band, a country band..... it's awesome!!

And then learning is easy..simple...just doing it and feeling you are making progress.

I'm a happy learner!!!