Learning About Learning

               “Don’t do that!” that’s probably the first instruction we ever received as a child that we truly remember. Do we ever really think as children that we are constantly learning? Where we really just blank canvases waiting to be made into a masterpiece, I think so.  Sitting down to do this I’ll be honest I didn’t give myself much time. But as I sat here trying to pour my thoughts into an essay about learning I realized I had already learned a lesson. Never give yourself less than an hour to write. And boom there it was, a learning moment. But as this moment passed I wondered, what is learning? What is education? All philosophical questions for someone much more learned than me. And someone with much more time on their hands. But still a question remains, why do we strive to learn?

                The first large task that I remember learning was riding a bike. Although I learned many things before this, for some reason this was a significant event. I knew how to walk, eat, and speak effectively already however mastering the art of riding a bike was king. I think it might have had something to do with my father, to this day I still strive to make him proud. Maybe we don’t just learn to better ourselves or out of necessity, maybe we do it for others. Although he have a base instinct to always better ourselves and advance in development maybe we learn for other reasons.  Reasons like making loved ones proud or a more Freudian reason: Making others take notice.

                
                     As a young child I grew up in Germany, born to German-Americans abroad I was lucky enough to grow up as a German. For the first 5 years of my life I effectively grew up thinking nothing about being American or going to the US. I learned to speak, walk, and talk like a German along with the other children in Kaiserslautern. Although I did eventually move to America and learn English, languages stayed something that was important to me. Within a year I learned English and after a few more I effectively lost my accent. After learning English so quickly I realized I had a talent. In high school I utilized this talent to learn French. Learning French and later Czech and Dutch was not out of need however. These languages were learned for a new reason. Impressing girls. Needless to say it wasn’t effective.