Learning...Next!

I've arrived at a threshold in my learning process. I can tell that it's time to leave this environment and move on to the next. What was a portal is now a steep spiral staircase with obstacles and challenges, many unnecessary. I've never felt more like a child; Completely counter to what I know to be good educational and administrative processes, filled with arbitrary rules, emotional directives and regulations, based on outmoded ways of thinking, immaturity and inexperience. It's far from the "adult education" that Malcolm Knowles speaks of in "Modern Practice of Adult Education: "At its best, an adult learning experience should be a process of self-directed inquiry with the resources of the teacher, fellow students, and the course itself being available to the learners but not imposed on them." It seems like an imposition now. I think they would be shocked to know that our potential is far greater then the expectations they impose upon us.

But as long as that isn't a train coming toward me, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's coming to the end of this part of the process of becoming a doc. I've always thought that basic sciences is more of a fraternal hazing than anything, but I've come to appreciate the baseline of knowledge that it is, and the reasons for that foundation in the future. The hurdle is not way out there anymore..it's right around the corner. I just need to navigate this last stage of basic sciences and the imposition that it is.

I've learned so much. I've eaten so many pancakes...many overdone, some underdone, some not even looking like pancakes. Now it is time to spit them out and finally be done with this phase. I know the learning isn't over, but I'm hopeful that life beyond this stage is a more an adult learning experience filled with self direction, mentors that lead and direct, and learning that is for the sheer joy of it, rather than the huge imposition that it has become. I have great faith since I've had such experiences...and I can't wait.