Think about your experience and history as a learner. What story can you tell? Write about your disconnections with learning (the things that cause you grief, create barriers, impede your progress as a learner). Then, write about the tensions and excitements associate with learning. Use specific examples when possible to illustrate your meaning.

What story can I tell about me as a learner? I tried to think about the first lesson I learned, and I was unsuccessful. I can not remember learning much as a kid. I guess it was because I learned most things with ease. I have to study and put some effort into learning; I have never been the type to read something once and then be able to use and apply it, though I often wish I was.

I do not remember learning to read, or write either in print or cursive, or even to add. What I do remember learning was not in school. I remember my mom teaching me Psalms 23, and my dad and my coaches showing me how to catch a fly ball and steal 2nd base. I think that it is so weird that I do not remember learning the majority of the stuff I learned in my younger years in school. I think that I do not remember because it came easy to me. I hardly ever remember getting upset over a grade, or stressing over a class until college.

I have never really struggled with learning anything. Math has always given me fits, though. I remember when I was in third grade, I did not know my multiplication facts and my teacher was going to give us some kind of test on it the next day. I did not sleep much that night; I worried and worried. I kept going over those facts in my head over and over. Instead of counting sheep to get to sleep, I was doing multiplication. I do not remember what I got on that test, but I must have done okay, since I passed third grade. The only thing that I can think of that has impeded my progress as a learner is myself. I can think of many times that I have been too hard on myself and expected too much, or lacked confidence. Almost every time I can think of in which I have had trouble learning, it was with math. I have been thinking about it and I think it all goes back to lack of confidence and too high of expectation. Math has always been tough for me, but thinking about it I was never in a general math class. Once I hit middle school, I was in the advanced math classes. It’s weird to me now, that I think I am so bad in math, yet I have always been in the classes with the “smart kids”. I guess that I am what holds me back. Take the example I just gave, my teachers were confident even with my skills to put me in Honors math classes, but I lacked the belief that I could do it. I think that is why I struggle with learning when I do, because I am insecure with my skills as a learner.

Learning can be so rewarding. I get really excited when I am taking a test and I am like “Wow, I really know this stuff”, or when I get involved in an educated conversation with someone about something that I have learned. One example of the latter happened to me last semester when I was volunteering at Health South. A lady was had been admitted to Health South around Christmas, I think it was. She had been there before over the summer for something, I think it was knee surgery or something like that. This time she was in because she had had a stroke. I could tell a HUGE difference in her. I had remembered her from the first time she was there. She was one of the patients that I liked and talked to. Anyway, I do not remember the exact deficits she had or what kind of a stroke she had experienced, but I got into two interesting conversations about her. One was with her brother and the other was with another OT. I remember leaving there that day so excited because I could actually apply what I had learned in Neurogenics class to a real situation in a real conversation, one with a professional.