Page 279 - E-Magazine 2016-17

LEARNING
O
ur world today is a marathon and we humans are mere athletes, competing with
each other and running as fast as we can to achieve our respective goals. We see
many hurdles on the way, but we try our best to cross them and each hurdle we
pass teaches us something totally new.
Schools teach us and then conducts the test but life
conducts the test and then teaches us, and this is
rightly so. Every incident has a moral, every obstacle
we overcome brings about the feeling of satisfaction
and every experience is learning. I really believe that
learning is life itself. Well, learning does not only
mean acquiring knowledge from books or the internet.
It is a broad term used to define knowledge, values,
experiences and lessons that one takes in during the
many years of stay in this planet. There are many things in life that we learn by observing
or noticing. I remember that as a child of two years, I used to go running in to bring a chair.
I used to take that chair to the balcony, stand on it and look closely at the family of beautiful
birds that were nested on the shed. Every day the mother bird used to come with some fruits
or feed. I always noticed that the mother waited for her little ones to finish eating first and
then she would eat. When I asked my mother about this, she told me that it was the love,
care and compassion of the mother.

Anything new that we get to know is learning. Learning comes out of experimenting many
things. The results may not be the way we want them to, but we do get to know that what
we were thinking might have been wrong. I am pretty sure that as immature children we all
must have tried to position the switches of a switchboard between the on and off status.
Why? Just to get know what happens in such a case. Curiosity is another inevitable feature
of learning. I remember peeping inside the fridge while closing it just to see the lights turn
off. Learning is a lifelong process. When we attempt to do something new for the first time,
we often do not get the desired results. We usually get disappointed and become reluctant to
try that same thing again. But we seldom remember that learning is the living body and fail-
ure, bad judgement etc. are its constructive cells, which are essential in this process of learn-
ing. As Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam had said that FAIL means “First Attempt In Learning”’ we
should keep trying till we achieve our goal. I remember that long back I had seen a video in
which there was a little duckling trying to climb a step. One cannot imagine the number of
times it fell. Sometimes it got bruised too. But the duckling had a firm mind and after a long
drawn struggle and concerted efforts, it managed to climb the step. After seeing that video,
my heart brimmed with satisfaction for the duckling’s success in reaching its goal.

Honestly life has always been teaching us the most beautiful and essential things that can-
not be found in books. Our imperfect self brings out the scope for learning. If everything was
perfect, we would never learn and never grow. The capacity to learn is a gift, the ability to
learn is a skill but the willingness to learn is a choice. One should never stop learning be-
cause life will never stop teaching. If we are determined to learn we are unstoppable. And
always remember that the expert in something was once a beginner

SHREEJA MUKHERJEE XI-E