I’m pretty much retired now. I still like learning, but I only learn things that I’m already interested in, and if I grow tired of it, I stop and move on to something else 😀.
Earlier in life, at times, I needed to learn about things that I wasn’t particularly interested in. Or, even if I was interested, I mightn’t have liked the learning context. I can think of teachers who terrorized us by hitting is with a stick if they asked us a question and we gave the wrong answer. Corporal punishment was a normal part of school life when I was a kid.
I grew up a Roman Catholic. Catholics and Protestants take a different view on the 10 commandments. The Bible presents the commandments and states that there are 10, but it doesn’t put numbers on them. Anyway, in our school, the 9th commandment was “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife”, and the 10th was “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods.” When the teacher asked me to recite the 9th commandment, I replied, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife..eh….goods”. So he hit me with a stick. I didn’t mind being punished if I was breaking rules, but I didn’t like being punished for getting an answer wrong. Maybe I didn’t spend enough time learning them.
We didn’t have any physical punishment in secondary school, but there was still a sense of terror at times. It just meant being given 100 lines or being kept in after school, but it spoilt life for me at the time.
Then, at third level, you feared doing badly in exams, or you were overwhelmed by too much project work.
I do have many happy memories, and there was the carrot as well as the stick. It did lift my spirits when I did well or when things were going well. And I have many fond memories of all my classmates. And of course, it was training for real life. I actually ended up teaching at second and third level. I even met some of my old teachers in staff rooms of schools that I taught in. And in church, I taught Sunday School for a while. And though I was never a formal Pastor, I probably preached over 1000 sermons over the years. And that’s a form of teaching. I don’t remember hitting anyone with a stick though 😀. Maybe I punished them by going on for too long.
Perhaps nowadays, what helps me stay motivated is the ability to choose from so many resources available in the web. For example, in recent years, I spent much time learning about cloud computing with Amazon Web Services (AWS). And I’ve enjoyed using resources created by AWS itself and on Udemy, Linkedin Learning, and YouTube. Finding a good teacher does motivate me because after I complete one course, I’m always keen to return to the same individual. And hand’s on activity is always great. The only downside to learning at home is that you don’t have the social dimension, but if I wanted to, there are ways and means of doing all that online too.
Anyway, I always like to close with a few pop videos or hymns. So here goes – two on school and a few hymns about spiritual growth. I have the Holy Spirit to motivate me for the latter:
Hibernia Gospel 