Powerful Learning; Ctrl C and Ctrl V

If you were asked to name the three most powerful learning experiences of your life what would be they be. I would be pretty confident that few if any of those moments took place in an educational environment



I have never had any training in the use of computers. My colleagues would confirm that was pretty self evidence. However my ability to use computers was transformed when a colleague showed me how to Copy and Paste. I think it took them five minutes but it changed the way I was able to use computers.


The next key moment was on the best work based course I attended. It was a residential week long experiential course on management with little or no formal teaching. The course was built around a group task and what was clever about the course was in the way that those groups were constructed and the fact that the task was a real one. We had to develop a new structure for a council department and present it to a group of councillors at the end of the week. The revelation was this that the three men in the group got tied up in a leadership battle and produced nothing and the two women just got on with the task and of course did all the work. I can still remember the group session at the end of the course when we reflected on our experience and recognised the importance of focusing on the task.


The final experience did take place in a classroom but again the learning was produced through an experience rather than any formal teaching input. At school I was reasonably good at history. I loved the subject and still do. I arrived at a double period lesson and without warning we were all asked to produce an essay comparing Castlereagh and Canning. I was incredibly put out. How could I produce my normal five pages when I had no chance to prepare so in a fit of pique I wrote Castlereagh did this and Canning did that in a really simple structure nothing like the great literary pieces I usually produced. Of course I got an ‘A’ and in an instant I understood about analysis. Brilliant teacher that Mr Dickens.


It is a salutatory lesson and if I were to reverse the question and ask myself when I was best as an ‘educator’ I would again be thinking of key moments rather than significant learning episodes. I often say people pay me for the 5 minutes of insight.


E-portfolios like blogs are often at their best because they are ideal for capturing moments rather than the ‘big’ learning journeys.