Learner within you

Cultivate a Learner within you

Ask yourself, ‘am I a learner’? If you get the answer ‘yes’ from within, ask again, “What’s the proof”? “What are the indicators to call myself a learner?’ Remember, all students are not learners, but all learners are students. Student, in conventional sense is a designation for those who are enrolled in a school or a college. Studentship, in real sense, is a mind set; mind set of a learner. Few who may or may not be enrolled in any school or college are students in that real sense of the term. Whosoever has the ‘student mind set’ is a learner.

Look at a cricketer, a pianist, a painter, a good teacher, a creative carpenter, and others. A cricketer not only plays, but also enjoys. Almost every cricketer whether legendry Sachin Tendulkar or dynamic captain MS Dhoni or Yuvaraj of Indian cricket, Yuvaraj Singh or the young turbanator Harbhajan Singh has made such statement more than once. So is a painter, a pianist and a vocal musician or a carpenter or a dedicated teacher; they all enjoy what they do. They find joy and excitement in cricket or painting or music or crafting a new furniture or teaching in a novel way. So, the first criteria is the joy in what you do.

Do you enjoy learning or it comes as a burden to you?
If you already enjoy learning tasks, you are a learner.
If you want to be a learner, you must enjoy learning.

Secondly, all those who excel in sports and games, art and painting, music and sculpting, teaching and mentoring are very inquisitive. They seamlessly search for new ideas, new methods of doing things. They are never satisfied with what they already know. They believe there is something more somewhere. So they keep exploring.
Do you?
For example, when you studied Latitude-Longitude in Geography, did you ask ‘What is the distance between the equator and Tropic of Capricorn; or what is the distance between two meridians at equator, and at the Tropic of Cancer, or why does Prime Meridian go through Greenwich and not Beijing or New Delhi?"
Are you satisfied with what you know and think ‘this is enough’?
Are you inquisitive – do you keep asking questions to others, keep looking in books and websites?
If you are satisfied with what you know, you may qualify as a student but not as a learner.
If you are seamlessly inquisitive like a child, you are a learner.

Remember, inquisitiveness and joy are interrelated. You are inquisitive because you find joy in learning something new. So, you must be both inquisitive and enjoy what follows due to your inquisitiveness.

Next, all learners are not only inquisitive, but they also tend to experiment and explore. They are unlikely to accept knowledge as written in the books or told by their teachers and elders. They verify knowledge. In the process, they discover knowledge that already exists, and sometimes new. Remember, there is nothing wrong in discovering knowledge. Many people advise not to reinvent wheels. This is a dangerous advice. You must reinvent wheels. What are important is not wheels; what is important is ‘reinventing’. Learners develop the habit of reinventing and inventing.

After all, we all celebrate Columbus who did not create, but only discovered America that already existed. Learners verify knowledge; learners experiment with new ways of solving problems.

Do you accept knowledge as they come or question them, research and verify them?
Do you experiment to find new solutions to old problems?
You will qualify as a learner only if you try to verify existing knowledge and experiment with your knowledge.

Please see the link. You will verify knowledge and experiment because you are inquisitive and not fully satisfied with what you know. You find joy in verifying knowledge as well as experimenting and finding new ways of doing things.

If you are a learner, you will be inquisitive, a researcher and an experimenter; and all these you will enjoy.

You must create a learner out of you – much larger than a designated student. Be inquisitive, research on the knowledge, experiment with new tools and techniques to find new solutions. I assure you, you will enjoy.