MY IDENTITY AS A LEARNER
My personal identity, I think can be defined most concisely with Carl Jung’s and Isabel Briggs-Myer’s personality test. ENTP: Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving. This means, for people like me, that learning often looks messy. There are millions of ideas being juggled around in my mind and I have to sort them out into one thing, or just spread them out and use them all. Often when learning I argue against everything just for entertainment. I've dialled it back nowadays. Teachers never really liked that. Self-directed learning is my favourite way to learn, I think. I've taught myself how to paint and draw, how to play guitar and piano, and I taught myself French, but I never used it, so I forgot all of it and later discarded it entirely. School-learning was never inspiring to me, and I was never interested. I think that my learning in a teacher-student environment has to be a very active pursuit of knowledge.
Researching a single topic is another messy process for me. So far I've probably spent more time going on tangents when I research and only realizing that I've just wasted a whole lot of time when I do a full circle and end up back on topic.
As a learner, the topic of national identity interests me because I've always been interested in personal identities. As long as I remember, I've never understood the idea of patriotism or nationalism, so I've always wanted to research it, but just never got around to doing it; so I want to see the difference between nationalism and patriotism and see whether or not I fit into either category.
Patriotism involves personal behaviours that support a nation's decisions and actions, so for example, a patriotic act could be going to war for your country. Nationalism, on the other hand, involves national identity and searching for a sense of belonging or identifying with/becoming attached to one’s nation (Rothi, 2005). To answer my earlier question: without a feeling of belonging to Australia, does that mean I don’t fall under the same category as other Australians? No. It just means I'm not a nationalist in any sense of the word. I've done very Australian things, like drinking beer, barbequing, and flinging myself into the ocean. I've even represented Australia in athletics as a part of the Pacific Games. Representing your country in a sporting endeavour is something that many Australians dream of doing, so does that make my sport-related actions patriotic? No, because I only did them out of enjoyment for the sport, not for a love of my country. I never sung the national anthem at the ceremonies and even when at school I never sung it. I don’t even know the words.
I've asked a few of my friends whether or not they’re proud to be an Australian, and the responses I got were mainly like this: “I like Australia because I can just kick back with a beer and feel accepted.” Therefore: proud to be Australian. But being proud is having a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction towards your own or someone else's achievements. I don’t think proudness is the right word. I am not proud. I feel fortunate, but not proud. I know that I'm in the privileged position of being male, white, educated and living in one of the “most liveable” cities in the world. Things are nice. I feel fortunate. I am not proud.
I think national pride can go two ways, it can either make you take care of the beaches and the land and make you participate in community projects, but all of these can be done without national pride. It can also lead to a very right-wing feeling that Australians should be a certain way, and all those who aren't are un-Australian and should be ostracised for being different.
I think a lot of the knowledge-gaps I've experienced have been about politics. I don’t really get politics. A point that came up during my search for national identity is the debate about Australia becoming a republic. I don’t know why we’re still a part of the commonwealth, and I don’t really know what it means. I have no idea what the role of the queen is. These gaps in my knowledge need to be addressed, if anything for personal gain. It doesn't really help me answer the question about national identity, but it’s a question that might come up in a classroom or elsewhere.
My personal identity, I think can be defined most concisely with Carl Jung’s and Isabel Briggs-Myer’s personality test. ENTP: Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving. This means, for people like me, that learning often looks messy. There are millions of ideas being juggled around in my mind and I have to sort them out into one thing, or just spread them out and use them all. Often when learning I argue against everything just for entertainment. I've dialled it back nowadays. Teachers never really liked that. Self-directed learning is my favourite way to learn, I think. I've taught myself how to paint and draw, how to play guitar and piano, and I taught myself French, but I never used it, so I forgot all of it and later discarded it entirely. School-learning was never inspiring to me, and I was never interested. I think that my learning in a teacher-student environment has to be a very active pursuit of knowledge.
Researching a single topic is another messy process for me. So far I've probably spent more time going on tangents when I research and only realizing that I've just wasted a whole lot of time when I do a full circle and end up back on topic.
As a learner, the topic of national identity interests me because I've always been interested in personal identities. As long as I remember, I've never understood the idea of patriotism or nationalism, so I've always wanted to research it, but just never got around to doing it; so I want to see the difference between nationalism and patriotism and see whether or not I fit into either category.
Patriotism involves personal behaviours that support a nation's decisions and actions, so for example, a patriotic act could be going to war for your country. Nationalism, on the other hand, involves national identity and searching for a sense of belonging or identifying with/becoming attached to one’s nation (Rothi, 2005). To answer my earlier question: without a feeling of belonging to Australia, does that mean I don’t fall under the same category as other Australians? No. It just means I'm not a nationalist in any sense of the word. I've done very Australian things, like drinking beer, barbequing, and flinging myself into the ocean. I've even represented Australia in athletics as a part of the Pacific Games. Representing your country in a sporting endeavour is something that many Australians dream of doing, so does that make my sport-related actions patriotic? No, because I only did them out of enjoyment for the sport, not for a love of my country. I never sung the national anthem at the ceremonies and even when at school I never sung it. I don’t even know the words.
I've asked a few of my friends whether or not they’re proud to be an Australian, and the responses I got were mainly like this: “I like Australia because I can just kick back with a beer and feel accepted.” Therefore: proud to be Australian. But being proud is having a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction towards your own or someone else's achievements. I don’t think proudness is the right word. I am not proud. I feel fortunate, but not proud. I know that I'm in the privileged position of being male, white, educated and living in one of the “most liveable” cities in the world. Things are nice. I feel fortunate. I am not proud.
I think national pride can go two ways, it can either make you take care of the beaches and the land and make you participate in community projects, but all of these can be done without national pride. It can also lead to a very right-wing feeling that Australians should be a certain way, and all those who aren't are un-Australian and should be ostracised for being different.
I think a lot of the knowledge-gaps I've experienced have been about politics. I don’t really get politics. A point that came up during my search for national identity is the debate about Australia becoming a republic. I don’t know why we’re still a part of the commonwealth, and I don’t really know what it means. I have no idea what the role of the queen is. These gaps in my knowledge need to be addressed, if anything for personal gain. It doesn't really help me answer the question about national identity, but it’s a question that might come up in a classroom or elsewhere.
Slowly zooming in? Movie trailer music? Recipe for "inspirational" videos is complete.
In all seriousness though, this is a great video. My learning in primary school in comparison to the learning today is very different, and I'm still only 19! This shows how quickly the learning world is changing. The world is increasing in size, and the opportunities that exist are multiplying endlessly, but a lot of schools aren't developing as the world does. I think that my learning has been interesting throughout the years because I didn't grow up with a computer or a phone, and I still don't have a so-called "smart"phone or anything like that. I've grown up learning with books and then I had to learn to use technology as it develops, and now I'm back learning from books. I think it would be strange being a primary school student going into school and there not being all these technologies available, because that's how they live and learn outside of schools. Educationally speaking, I think learning should be adapting to use what is readily available.
It's incredible to think that in South Korea there are schools where the students' hours spent reading textbooks and doing work online counts towards attendance at school, and in Denmark their students can use the internet during exams. These are brilliant teaching methods. Memorisation isn't thought of as the same as learning or understanding any more.
In all seriousness though, this is a great video. My learning in primary school in comparison to the learning today is very different, and I'm still only 19! This shows how quickly the learning world is changing. The world is increasing in size, and the opportunities that exist are multiplying endlessly, but a lot of schools aren't developing as the world does. I think that my learning has been interesting throughout the years because I didn't grow up with a computer or a phone, and I still don't have a so-called "smart"phone or anything like that. I've grown up learning with books and then I had to learn to use technology as it develops, and now I'm back learning from books. I think it would be strange being a primary school student going into school and there not being all these technologies available, because that's how they live and learn outside of schools. Educationally speaking, I think learning should be adapting to use what is readily available.
It's incredible to think that in South Korea there are schools where the students' hours spent reading textbooks and doing work online counts towards attendance at school, and in Denmark their students can use the internet during exams. These are brilliant teaching methods. Memorisation isn't thought of as the same as learning or understanding any more.