Guide to self-education Part 1
A policy of independently building your educational pathway taken, mentors found, now it’s time to seek opportunities to form and expand their knowledge and skills.
In previous articles we discussed what stops us from self-education and began to get acquainted with the first ways to build it: who can become your teacher and how to make his rich educational environment.
Today we will deal with how to secure training to practice and how not to get lost among the millions of public sources. Go.
Try and practice
The best assistant in obtaining learning skills will become a simple English rake (or the principle of “Try and trial”).
My Prime example: from school I, like many graduates, came out with “five” in English and could proudly say in the face of the first foreigner I’ve ever met: “Hello, my name is Vlad…”. My ability to international communication abruptly, and my head is spinning silent table. Since I was not able to study English courses, but for 3.5 years I worked in the international organization AIESEC, through which I had to constantly communicate with foreigners, to participate in international conferences and to learn a bunch of English language business terminology. Skills of the English language very quickly when the Intern for whom you are responsible, got lost in the outskirts of the city. Or when you need in broken English to share their thoughts with the audience.
After a year I was able to fluently communicate in six months — to watch movies without subtitles, and the year I realized I could read books in the original, and the last year spent in another country while you’re doing publishing in English.
Everyone finds their own style, but in conjunction with other ways to learn practice always remains a binder, a cross-cutting method; and certainly dive into a new area begins with the sample.
Try to take what you wanted “to learn first and then try” and flip it upside the head. Try and build up their learning along with the process.
Get inside places of practice
Long enough I was interested in the practice of “Neogene” — educational project, which originated in the 90s, where students together with older together, solved the problem of “creation of possible worlds”. In August 2015 I suddenly found that now another “Noogen” runs in a night journey by bus from my city. The best solution? To offer/ask for tomorrow to come to them and engage in the process as co-organizer. Two books about Neogene, swallowed the bus, and here I am in the steppes of Khakassia work together with the team — ranging from simple observation of the group, together with the leading moderator on the first day and ending with participation in the development of the program at the end of the shift.
A big part of my journey in India was on alternative schools and educational sites. Quickly making sure that a single offer of cooperation here does not work, I began to just come to these places, to establish a deep connection with the team and engage in the process. Somewhere I had conducted trainings for children, teachers, parents; somewhere I read lectures on the philosophy of education, cognitive psychology and group dynamics; where did the film together with the students; and sometimes scrubbed the toilet in the campus with them. But the goal remained the same — to take in the organization, to learn, to see and feel her work, spirit, culture.
Find the places where the cool practiced what you want to learn right now, don’t delay until you’re “savvy enough”. And enter into the life of these places.
In the corporate world, the traditional version of this activity is to get a internship (a secret: even if the company officially this is not possible, then you can initiate). Depending on your goals and situation, offer to work for free or on special conditions. Your main reward is experience.
By the way, I often hear adults suggest that young people, edifying repeating that experience is a huge price. But here they themselves, when they want to learn why some consider this approach below your… ahem, dignity. But the way to manage your financial flow, you can always find, if you really want to enter a new field.
Sometimes not a sin to just try to do something that has already been implemented others (not to forget about ethics). But a much more powerful approach is to debrief your example into components, to understand the mechanism and logic of the and add these items to your Luggage.