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| "Wrestlers" (1905) by George Luks |
Do you know anyone who values the "work of knowing"? If so, can you tell a story that illustrates that characteristic?
How about you? Have you ever had an experience in which you started out purely motivated to finish a learning assignment but discovered along the way that the work in itself was of value to you? If so, did you do anything after the assignment was completed to continue working on it?
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ReplyDeleteWhether a radiator in an ’89 Jeep Wrangler goes bad, or a broken valve in a an toilet get loose and floods the first story of a two story home causing the carpets to need replacing, the fastest solution is to call the professionals and let your problem become their problem. However, when my car broke down, and our house flooded, my dad fixed these problems himself. Being an aerospace mechanic, his plumbing and automobile knowledge is limited. But when he thinks to himself, “What’s to gain from calling a professional when can do the job myself, and know for future reference?” he is unconsciously valuing the “work of knowing”. After you read through a car manual and make too many mistakes to count, you learn what bolt to take off in what order, and what gadget controls what piece. You begin to understand the flow and rhythm of the car. The process was not as efficient, but the learning that occurred cannot be measured. When my mom’s care broke down a week later, my dad had it fixed in half the time. While he had already learned car basics, this time he learned each car has its own personality. Taking our cars to the shop would have been easier and got us driving around faster, but my dad would have never gained this knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. Any time there is a problem in my family, my parents both try to fix it themselves, not only to gain the knowledge themselves, but also to teach my brother and I the importance of learning.
DeleteWhile contemplating this question I think back to the chapter about GPS. Even though it takes more time and effort to find and read a physical map I learn a lot along the way and end up "valuing the work" of the process. Because a map isn't focused on one street or even one town a lot of the time, I learn where roads, borders, and cities are in relation to each other. This "work" has allowed me to get a better mental image of my city, state, and country. If I had simply followed a GPS I wouldn't have the very useful knowledge that reading maps has given me.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this, the first person that came to my mind was my mom. When my mom was 35, she was a stay at home mom, and my dad worked full time. My family had just moved into a house that was severely out of date. She decided that she was going to fix the house up, so she went and read books on how to flip a house. Fifteen years later, when we began to build our house we have now, she learned how to put up drywall and lay tile by reading about it. She can fix anything and is one of the handiest people I know. Anytime I want to fix something or learn how to, she always tells me to read a book and use my brain, and that mantra will stick with me forever.
ReplyDeleteWhen thinking of someone who appreciates the “work of knowing”, my dad is definitely the first person to pop into my mind. My dad is one of those “superhero” dads who can really do anything I need him to do, whether that be fixing something on my car, helping me with an assignment, building me a shelf, or something super crazy one of our neighbors needs help with. If you need something done, my dad is the guy for the job. Reading this, I know he did not come to be that way by only worrying about finishing things. He became that way by learning through experiences. When given a challenge, he thought through the process and he learned from it. He completes things by himself, no help needed, and the satisfaction propels him onto the next.
ReplyDeleteAs for myself, my freshman year of high school I had a year long challenge. I had to sit and work with a group of boys all year long who had completely different personalities than me. At the beginning, I hated it and I could not wait for the year to be over. However, as time went on, I realized that I could actually learn from the boys and help them out as well. The journey to completing that project taught me how to truly be a leader. In no way would I be who I am today if it were not for that class. I am forever grateful for that experience and the leadership opportunities I have been given since then.
My father is the best amateur mechanic I know. He's been studying cars, trucks, and tractors since he was a boy, and can work on just about anything. Around ten years ago, my mom decided she wanted to completely remodel our house. However, we couldn't afford to hire professionals to do the work. Never one to back away from a challenge, my dad decided he would do it all himself. He did almost all of the work in what turned into a five year project, and learned a lot along the way. He hung sheetrock, constructed walls, installed insulation... The only tasks he didn't do himself were pouring new concrete (we left that to the pros) and painting (done by my mom). He also recently decided to drop a Cummins diesel engine into his '83 Chevy pickup. This is just the latest of many vehicle projects he has undertaken over the years. To accomplish his goal he had to place new engine mounts onto the frame, cut part of the frame off, in addition to the many supporting welds he did. He enjoys learning how to build, and each success propels him on to a new project.
ReplyDeleteMy dad is one of those people who will do things for the work of knowing. He would normally try to figure out how he could do something on his own, instead of just having someone else do it or throw something away for a new one. For example, as a teenager my dad learned how to do various trades, like electricity work, body work or mechanical work for cars and even car detail work. One story that I remember in particular was the time that our PlayStation 2 broke and my father got a screwdriver and took the whole thing apart himself. We had another old PS2 from my cousin that basically was only good enough for parts, so he took it apart, figured out what had broken and replaced it. The PlayStation worked just like it used to.
ReplyDeleteMy dad and even my papa had been my examples in my life that tried to show me to work hard for what I want and to try and figure it out for myself. Although, there was one other time that my senior year English teacher taught me a valuable lesson about working to know. She never held our hands when it came to papers and assignments because she wanted us to be prepared for adulthood and college. We worked on this weekly assignment that she called “sentences”. We had to take our vocabulary words for that week and the “sentence pattern” that she decided on and had to write these sentences properly to the pattern while also using the word properly. Sometimes she would even give us a certain topic to write about that tended to relate to the book we were reading at the time. I used to loathe these sentences because they sometimes were extremely challenging but they helped me to better how I wrote sentences and even made me be able to write more complex sentences correctly.
My dad is completely the same way as the previous comments explain. He seems to know everything and can do everything. When I got interested in sports, he seemed to be an expert on everything, even though he had not done it all himself. What he did not know he learned and what he did know he expanded on. I remember being a fifth grader, just getting started in sports and I decided to try out high jump in track. My dad had competed a little when he was younger but did not know everything about it. Every time someone would come to help me he would watch and listen to everything they said. He watched YouTube videos on form and on different workouts to do, and pretty soon he was the only coach I needed. We both learned together. Even though I knew in my head what I messed up on, just hearing him tell me made it so much better. I wouldn't trade those eight years and hundreds of practices for anything. Now I know that the learning process was so much more rewarding than the competitions.
ReplyDeleteMy AP U.S. history teacher’s name was Clara Hutchings and she loved the grit that it would take to delve into a tough subject or to teach a concept that is hard to understand. She wholeheartedly believed in the journey meaning nearly just as much as the result. Her obsession with the “work of knowing” would often lead to the entire class period being dedicated to a subject and the relevance wouldn’t show until the very end of discussion, she loved making us work for what we were learning. I loved this class because that is how my brain works as well. For our largest assignment in senior year English we had to do a massive research paper over a book that inspires you. I was dreading it because it was going to take forever and I had better things to do but as I started writing and researching my topic I was actually enjoying myself. I did my paper over Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and it was just a great experience having to research the allegories and meanings behind each of the characters and peeling back each layer of her story. Even after I finished my paper and had turned it in, I kept reading on slavery and Stowe’s views on political issues. The long process of writing the paper was definitely valuable and meant more than receiving my grade at the end of the semester.
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