Ohhh yeah

How We Learn
Without experience and emotion, learning as we all know it, would cease to exist. Well, it would exist, but would it be of any importance to us? Facts and knowledge are fragile devises; they are not to be thrown around like toys into people’s brains. Knowledge is to be taught through experience, and learned and retained as a result. Without experiencing what we learn, knowledge would just be there, a stationary object in which we could grasp with our hands, not with our minds. Without living through what we have learned, knowledge would not have any true meaning to its students. That is why students around the world learn better through “hands on” learning, and not through lectures. Like Paulo Freire once said, “Narration leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher. The more completely he fills the receptacles, the better a teacher he is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are” (Freire 69.) People are not machines, they are not robots, and they are certainly not receptacles or containers. Learning has to mean something to us, not just some random facts thrown around, and if we happen to catch one, then we are considered “smart,” and are understood to comprehend the issue because we can repeat it. In theory, we need something more than teachers spitting out facts, we need life lessons, life experiences, and then we would really have some geniuses among us.
We also learn with emotion. Subjects are best obtained if they appeal to our senses and emotions. Students remember things best when they have an emotional attachment to something. If there is something we feel strongly about we remember it, because some emotions are so strong that they engrave themselves into one’s mind, and can take a while to let go. Emotion attaches itself to learning subconsciously. Without even knowing it, we feel certain emotions when we obtain, and can relate to certain knowledge. For Example, learning about The Destruction of the Indies by Bartolome Las Casas, would be learned rather easily if someone had ancestry that had been killed in those cruel and unusual deaths. Also, emotion deals with religion, religion is never to be replaced, but can be compared to learning. To learn is like practicing religion, in which they both need emotion, and a cognitive aspect to practice. Like Terry Eagleton has previously stated, “… like religion, literature works primarily by emotion and experience, and so was admirably well-fitted to carry through the ideological task which religion left off” (Eagleton 51.) When practicing a religion, you feel the texts in which it is written. You feel the text as if it was alive, and can connect with you spiritually. That is how all literature should be; connecting with your emotions, so that it can be better practiced, and mean something other than just letters on a page that one can read. Emotion helps us open up and let learning in. Wishing fellow students a good day and a well understand of their life before one starts their work will take a weight off of their shoulders, and make learning easier. It is easier to learn when you feel warm hearted, and good at soul instead of close minded and hatred towards others who are in your situation.






Other Brainstorming that I did. . .
Why we learn. Learning is power, and without learning certain things one cannot accomplish very much in our world or at least in the U.S. Jobs and money are some of the things that we see as valuable in our lives, and without the proper education it is hard to obtain either of those.
Why we learn. Learning triggers our innermost feelings and thoughts. I think that a person is considered lost if they do not know at some point in time what their purpose in life is, why they make a difference on this planet, or who they really are. Learning helps open up our minds, and understand our souls. It can help us find ourselves, and see ourselves in another light that could have never been possible without literature or other knowledge.
Possible Quote: Page 59, “to read literature was thus to regain vital touch with the roots of one’s own being.”
Learning brings us together, other countries, ethnicities, and helps us understand issues through others standpoints. We have to realize that we are not the only country on this planet, and it is healthy to understand where other people come from, and how their life differs from ours. We cannot be so ethnocentric, we are not the best country out there, and we have to start understanding others.
Maybe be able to use quote... “Therefore, though culture may be concerned with making the individual better that is not necessarily to say that it is concerned with the restructuring of society.” Page 66
We learn because we can, evolution gave us the ability to branch out, communicate, and learn to great limits. We would not want to waste that privilege.
Page 72, “yet only through communication can human life hold meaning.”

Abstract
I hope to get many different things out of my philosophy of learning. One being that I will be able to write a better understand, or at least for me, of how and why we learn. While reading Falling Into Theory a lot of things confused me, I did not agree with much, and I never have seen theories about learning like I have read in that book. With this paper I get a chance to explain what I think. I do not have to read other authors talking about learning and literature, now I get to be just like them, and write how I feel about the learning process. Also, I mentioned in my brainstorming portion, that I believe someone is considered lost if they do not know their purpose in life, how they make a difference, or who they are as a person. I guess I am considered lost then, because I still believe I am young, and do not know yet what my purpose in life is, or who I am. Hopefully by writing this paper, and understand why and how I learn the things that I do, I will come into better grips with my inner self, and my deepest feelings.