With your own education ...

[Luanne]

Do you follow a pattern or some kind of orderly fashion of how you learn things or are you like me and just bounce all over the place? I am finding I want to learn everything at once. I have a short attention span and find myself not sticking with one thing for very long before I am off on another tangent. Am I the only one like this? :001_huh:

[riada]

I find something and learn about it until I get bored with that subject and then find something else to obsess over, essentially that is what it is for me. I learn it to the every detail and then move on. I think mine is an odder way of doing it than yours of bouncing around, lol. Thank goodness I am more well rounded with my children's educations!

[Michelle in MO]

For example, about 5 years ago, Shackleton and the failed Endurance expedition was all the rage, so I read everything I could get my hands on about the expedition, including watching the wonderful movie with Kenneth Branagh in it. Before that, it was World War II and especially the invasion of D-Day, so then I read as many Stephen Ambrose books as I could, including D-Day, Citizen Soldiers, and Band of Brothers. In college, my obsession was the Holocaust and its causes. So, I tend to really get into something, and when I've worn out the subject for myself, I move on to the next obsession. :D

[percytruffle]

I'm a bouncy, obsessed learner :D. I jump into something that interests me and start reading and discussing and pondering until I've had enough which could take years (or my family has had enough). Then, I bounce to a new interesting topic. These topics usually overlap time wise, not in subject, so that I can bounce back and forth between a few of them as I go, but there is usually one main topic at a time with several sub-topics. Then there are the small tangents of knowledge that lead me astray almost daily. Wow, I sound kind of neurotic !;)

 

Just ask my family about personality theory and listen as they all groan...they have listened to my drivel about that for years now.

 

I love to learn and really get excited about things, even little things I don't already know. Dh and I were just discussing something over the weekend and I didn't know the answer. After a few minutes he asked me why I wasn't looking it up! In my defense, I have a cold and did not have to energy to retrieve the laptop.

 

The family calls me the read-bot.

[Luanne]

My daughter (age 19) is always giving me a hard time for looking everything up. I told her that is what encyclopedias, dictionaries, and the internet are for. I love learning new things.

[Plaid Dad]

I have a couple of subjects that are long-term self-education projects, but I also go on research jags where I read up on a particular subject that interests me. Those can go from a few weeks to a few months.

[percytruffle]

I love learning new things.

 

That's the best thing about learning, you're never really done :). The more you learn, the more you understand you really have a long way to go. You are modeling that well for your dd. She may not pick up your same desire for learning, but you are showing her how to become a life long learner. That's one of the most important concepts we can pass on to our dc.

[Peela]

I very much follow my interests, and my interests come up strong and I get obsessive, then just as fast they can disappear and I move onto something else. I find I cant read fast enough when I am really into something.

its not that I am completely flaky (I keep telling myself) and inconsistent, but I am not trying to reach some outer goal, or please anyone but myself, so I trust that following my interests is just fine. Sometimes my interest is to read my kids' school books for next term,and that feels like the best thing to be doing. but then I might come across a spiritual book, or this week, a health/cook book, and nothing else seems to matter but reading them. I have set myself a schedule though for reading the kids' books.