JOY OF LEARNING
This page contains my learning
tips. In other words, all you really needed to know about doing well
in Hackett's classes, but never dared to ask (or she forgot to mention/took for
granted). It is based on my 25 years of teaching experience at all levels
in the
1. JOY OF
READING
If I am asked what is the common denominator of good students, I always reply
that they read. This may sound obvious, but by this I mean reading
beyond what is required for class and reading for edification and for enjoyment.
(For the latter, I am rather partial to the escapism offered by former
religious studies professor and now successful international thriller writer,
Daniel Easterman, and the host of British detective novel, especially women,
writers)
Reading for edification. If sports analogies mean anything to
you--it is akin to playing sports with someone slightly better than you in
order to improve your skills in the game. If the person is too good, you
will be intimidated and defeated; if the person is too weak, you may indeed
turn into the teacher rather than the learner or be pulled down by the lower
standard of your partner. Don't say that you don't have time to read--there is
always the New York Times and the New Yorker or Atlantic
Monthly that can be read by those on the run.
2. JOY OF ASKING
There was a rapid rise in my learning curve as an undergraduate in
So it is quite simple--ask
questions. Sometimes it can be more important to ask questions than to
provide answers (the inquiring mind v. the know-it-all). Hence my
fondness for The Dumb Question. Sometimes the simplest and most obvious
question can provoke the finest discussion. By asking the Dumb Question,
you can do your fellow students a favor--by asking the question that no-one
else dared to ask (and the professor was too busy to have anticipated it
herself). If you ask questions of yourself and others, of your work and
others, that is the way to stimulate critical thinking, and instill confidence
and independent thought. It will also endear you to others, and signaling
that you are 1) keen to learn 2) willing to listen. In other words,
it is about being an active rather than a passive learner
(educational experiments have proved how learning is considerably facilitated
by increased agency or the learner)
Under the category of asking, I
would include asking about how you could do better next time. In other
words, if you did not get an 'A' for your assignment, you have to ask
why. Ask yourself and your professor. Ask with a view to learning
and improving.
I used to think that one of the
best "people" to ask things or "dumb questions" of on the
Web was Jeeves, the
3. JOY OF
DISCUSSING
Research findings show that learning and understanding occcur with greater
success when done collectively. So join or create a study group! Other people
make great sounding-boards! Just telling someone what you are reading or
writing about will reveal to you whether you have a grasp of the material or
not. Be an active learner--research shows how that works better than
being a passive one!
4. JOY OF
THINKING
I was always taught to "think before you speak." What good
advice that is. What can be worse than people, "talking off the tops
of their heads"! In other words, try to be informed on what
you choose to comment on or have opinions about. Favor those who have
"considered" opinions on what they are discussing or the humility to
admit they have not "thought through" those issues yet.
There are plenty of books out
there to help you think. I like the works of the celebrated British
"lateral thinker," Edward de Bono. His works, De Bono's Thinking
Course and Six Thinking Hats are readily available.
5. JOY OF
CONNECTING
By this I mean the joy of making connections between the knowledges and information
you actively seek or passively receive. I did a double major as an
undergraduate--French and Religious Studies. I was excited about being
able to study French religious poetry, deism in French 19th century thought,
and doing fieldwork in France's first ecumenical church in Grenoble, during my
year abroad there.
In an increasingly fragmented and
interdisciplinary world, it is hard to make intellectual connections. Trying to
make connections via the Internet helps but also hinders. You can get
sidetracked and lose focus. The most successful people are very focused. But
focused, in my opinion,. should not mean narrow-minded.
To me, making connections between
ideas, etc. is about relevance. I am somewhat obsessed with
relevance. I like to see the relevance of something for something
else, whether in terms of the books I read, the research I do, and the talks I
give. There is a technical term for it now--"connectivity."
I love it when students come to me
saying that they saw something on TV or travelled somewhere and understood what
was going on because of what they learned in class. It can be something as
simple as the meaning of a symbol.
6. JOY OF
STUDYING
The Foreign Word: my advice is simple, don't panic, don't ignore
it--increase your vocabulary. It may be in your main dictionary if it is
a commonly used foreign word (such as "gestalt"). If not look
it up in http://www.libraryspot.com
where you have access to dictionaries, etc. in 150 languages!
7. JOY OF WRITING
One of the most important keys to
good writing is to be clear on who you are writing for and under what
circumstances. In other words, be clear when you are writing an academic essay
and when you might be composing a chatty email message. Be clear on the
difference between written and spoken language. I used to see in the
margins of my school essays "too colloquial." Now I
understand that it is more appropriate to pull someone up for using "mallspeak"!
Some universities are conducting campaigns to expunge those awful
conversational fillers of youthful dialect--"you know," and
"like" from their students' written (and spoken) output.
There are three keys to better writing.
1) Read more--to improve your style and vocabulary 2) Proof read--develop a
critical eye for your own work 3) Sleep on it--write then reread at a later
stage. It will look different!
One of my favorite wordsmiths is
Richard Lederer who can be heard on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition. He
is the author of many helpful and amusing books for the linguistically and
grammatically challenged! See, e.g. Fractured English and Anguished
English, as well as Get Thee to a Punnery.
8. JOY OF SPELLING
You may think spelling is
unimportant, that your ideas still come through regardless. But consider
how meaning can be changed by misspelling, sometimes with embarrassing
consequences. A classic example from our field-- if you misplace the
'c' in "sacred" you get "scared" (a scared person rather
than a sacred person). Adding an accidental letter to
"democracy" will give you "demoncracy"!
It is so important to spell proper
nouns, names etc. properly. Think how you do not like to see your name
misspelt.
Failure to spell the name of a people or a place all through an essay on that
topic is particularly jarring.
Protecting the Apostrophe
For some years I have been engaged in a personal campaign to protect the poor
old apostrophe. It is either missed out or misplaced.
The most egregious example is its/it's. It is getting
to the point that hardly any student gets it right (even learned professors are
included here). So if you want to please me and stand out from the pack:
it's = IT
IS eg it's surely time to feed
the dog
its = possessive eg the dog ate its
dinner but = the art show was like a dog's dinner
does it matter? sometimes
no, sometimes yes, e.g. the boys dinner (you might not
be able to tell from the context if it was the dinner of one boy or many boys)
so-- it's easy to support
the apostrophe, just put it in its rightful place!
Since I first set up this webpage
I have been contacted by fellow Brits who have actually gone to the trouble of
creating websites and organizations for this purpose! See, for example, http://www.incredible.org.uk/apostrophell.
Humorous, but painful. See also a newspaper article
on the subject and a fun cartoon!
In 2004, Lynne Truss published a
small, witty and incisive book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero
Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, expressing her despair over the
decline of good punctuation, and its sometimes disastrous, consequences. It proved to be a best-seller both sides of
the
9. JOY
OF IMAGINING
Increasingly, I believe that I am
bound to teach students how to imagine, how to empathize. This not only assists analysis, but generates
understanding, and maybe compassion. It
helps one transcend one’s own bias to develop a more nuanced reading of a
situation. For example, imagining what
it would be like to be a Christian in
10. JOY OF SLEEPING
Finally, none of the above would be possible if we did not recharge our minds and bodies with sleep! We live in an age where frenzied daily routines seem to be the norm, and sleep deprivation is something to boast about (especially among students). This is nothing to be proud of when one knows the long-term consequences for our immune system and vital organs, let alone our brains, of lack of healing and restorative sleep. So preserve your IQ, get your sleep quota! Don't be a road menace, in many countries more accidents are caused by sleep deprivation than alcohol or drugs!!
For many the problem is getting to sleep and quality of sleep. You could no better than checking out the following site (which I have had a hand in since it is written by my brother, Tony Hackett!) THE SLEEPWELL METHOD.
If there is something unclear,
missing or contentious, please feel free to contact
me
