Active Learning is the Key

In science fiction, a student might put on a Golden Knowledge-Transference Helmet and know all there is to know about a subject within an amazingly short time (maybe even without nefarious controllers adding subliminal directives as part of the process).

In the real world, learning takes time and effort, especially when a concept remains unclear, at least for a while. Since our minds are our own and there are no Golden Knowledge-Transference Helmets available, teachers cannot download information into a system for students to retrieve by osmosis. There is no Vulcan mind meld either.

Through tried and true ways, humans share what they know with each other. We tell each other or demonstrate or use symbols of some kind to exchange information. Learning requires our active attention, not a passive expectation that facts, data, or intelligence might be had by other means.

When you get a composition back with a notation that you have a couple of comma splices, it is time to become an independent scholar and do your own investigation so that you can learn exactly what constitutes a comma splice and how to punctuate sentences correctly. All the rules and regulations of English usage are available to you in books, online, from teachers, or from tutors here at the Stone Writing Center. It is still, however, your own labor that makes a difference as you master the formerly mysterious idea of a comma splice (or any other convention of the language).

While a science fiction idea of instantly gaining an education sounds good, too good to be true given the above-mentioned nefarious controllers anyway, there is still joy in how we actually do learn: consciously considering and convincing our minds to comprehend.

As I watch seabirds - gulls, pelicans, cranes - sometimes I want to know more about them, what their lives are like beyond flying over the gulf, walking along the sands, or perching on a pier; but to find out anything at all, I have to do some research. What I then discover means more to me than if somehow or the other the knowledge had just come to me without any effort at all. Actively learning is the key, itself rewarding the work of the mind.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!