80 Learning Reflection

Ever since I was little, I have always loved school. I walked into school with anticipation of what new fact I would come home with, what new book we would read, or what new skill I would have. I was hungry for information. Once I got into my last couple years of high school this hunger for information started to phase. Classes became less interesting, the work load increased, lectures became impossible to sit through, and I started to fall out of love with school. College only made this worse because my life wasn’t just school anymore, it was a mixture of what felt like a million different hats I needed to wear. Throughout the past six semesters here I have found that not all of my classes are going to be interesting and I will have to adapt myself to the structure of those courses. Despite this, I have also found that I love learning through discussion of real world scenarios and talking about deep, thought-provoking issues. I struggle with listening to lectures due to the lack of engagement with students, but I’ve found that having readings for lectures helps to solidify topics covered. Learning works best for me when I have information presented through either a lecture or reading and then engaging in a discussion or activity during class where deeper thoughts can be made.

Active listening, to me, is making oneself fully available to absorb the content of what someone is saying and how they are speaking. Making eye-contact, softening your features, allowing for silences to let someone think about their words, and reading each situation individually to offer the best support one can. Although I feel like I can describe what active listening is, I do not fully practice it often in my day-to-day life. Usually, I insert myself into conversations to share my thoughts or feelings because when I don’t, I start to zone out, or lose interest in what someone is telling me. I do this often but when it comes down to a more emotional or difficult conversation, I use a lot of energy to simply sit, listen, and offer as much empathy I can to that person in the moment. I also work in the hospital as a Patient Care Tech and when I am with a patient, I don’t usually have the luxury of time to fully engage myself into a conversation or I am so mentally/emotionally exhausted that I tend to tune everything out. Active listening is something I most definitely do not practice often during class. Lectures are usually presented to a large group of students where the professor has an agenda of what information they want or need to get across, and the students take notes off of it. Also, lectures aren’t always engaging or have information that I find interesting so I zone out, or do a different assignment, because it is not a back and forth interaction, it is simply a mode of receiving information I need in order to get a good grade.

I tried this with two of my patients at work and with one of my friends during a hard time. One of my patients was frustrated with their pain management so I took my time to listen to them and their frustrations. They are deaf so facial expressions were necessary to show I was listening. I used a communication bored to repeat their frustrations, reassure them, and let them know how I could help in that moment. Active listening at a patient care tech looks different for me due to the fact that patients look for a solution. They were grateful to have someone take time to absorb what their frustrations were, which created a better bond between us. The other patient I practiced this with just wanted someone to chat with for a bit so I took time to listen to what was on their mind, ask them if there was anything I could do for them because my job is time bound, repeated what they would like, and brought them whatever they needed. They seemed happy to have someone to talk to for a bit, have a real conversation, and were reassured with my repetition of their needs. My friend had a situation where she got in trouble at a football game and felt like something bad could happen to her. Knowing her personality, I listened to her concerns, comforted her, and offered reassurance with her worries. I read her body language and addressed her concerns multiple times throughout the night to give her peace of mind and she was grateful that together we could go through her concerns and calm her worries. With my job I often have 8-16 patients which means I don’t always have lots of time to sit and listen for long periods of time. I also do not have much power within my field of practice to offer solutions which can be frustrating for both me and the patient. Many of my patients want solutions so when I can’t offer them, or offer them solutions they don’t like it can make them more frustrated. I find it hard to just sit and listen and constantly offer reassurance with no problem solving, and it can get emotionally and mentally exhausting.

This was a fairly eye-opening experience for me because I realized how exhausting active listening is for me personally. Practicing active listening with a person I am close to when they are going through a hard time is much easier for me than practicing this with my patients at work. I feel like the personal connection makes listening easier for me and honestly, I care more. I have realized that if I fully involved myself into every conversation with my patients that I would have no energy at the end of the day. I also realized that active listening doesn’t need to occur all of the time and that it is okay to protect my personal peace if I know I do not have the capacity to sit and listen to a conversation that I know I do not care much about. Although I found some negatives, I also found that when I sat down with someone and let them talk, that they were able to filter through their thoughts and talk about their feelings easier. When people talk, they tend to come to solutions themselves and I realized that my additional commentary isn’t always necessary. I also found that people just appreciate having someone who sits and listens with minimal reactions and that it creates a safer environment for someone to speak with no judgement. When looking at this assignment I have learned that I need to practice active listening more in my life due to the appreciation that others feel when they experience it. I also feel that the more I do it, the easier it will be, and the more I will improve on my ability to engage with others in an effective manner.

Prior to this week I had never formally learned about visual thinking strategies and their benefit to comprehensive learning. After this week though, VTS is about directing all of your focus to the minute details of art, absorbing them, and allowing yourself to determine the “why” of all the details. I feel like as humans we love to tune out the details of things around us as it would be incredibly overwhelming to analyze every single detail of every single thing we see or notice. VTS bypasses the natural instinct to “scan” over the details and forces us to reason with the details within art and piece together a story created by the artist, from your own perspective.

I have always had a hard time connecting with art and quite frankly, caring about the meaning behind a lot of art. When first viewing the painting “Anarcha with Dr. J. Marion Sims” it felt silly to write down details of the painting but once we discussed, and looked over it one more time, I could see how every single detail painted was meticulously placed. The details came together and I could see the story of the vulnerability of the black women and also the sheer power Dr. Sims and his apprentices had over the women. The MERF was also clearly constructed with great detail as the window placement was constructed to allow lots of natural light in, the courtyard was placed perfectly in the middle allowing for students and faculty to have an inviting space to get fresh air, and the inside of the building had majority integrated lighting with natural light rather than fluorescent. Everything from paintings to architecture has a story to tell and when I pay attention to the small details of art, I can see how every stroke or every building decision has a greater purpose.

I have always had this notion that I am “bad” at understanding art and that I “just don’t connect” with art in the same way that others do. This personal belief had driven a barrier between me and being able to appreciate the beauties that art offers on a deeper level. The activity with the painting of Marion Sims showed me that the details one notices or finds interesting will be different than the person sitting next to you. Each person interprets art in a unique and personal way which is why using art as an outlet for understanding health and healing can serve benefits to a wide array of people in many different ways.

In all honesty, writing learning reflections is not my favorite way to process how and what I have learned. Despite this, by having to consistently reflect on my learning through this class, I have been able to recognize other ways of how I reflect on my learning and how they benefit me. Since getting diagnosed with ADHD during my first semester of college, I have spent the last three years in therapy dissecting, understanding, and reflecting on how I learn and why I learn the way that I do. These consistent reflections on my learning have improved my school life immensely and by recognizing that I reflect best through conversation I can utilize this skill to not only deepen my understanding of myself, but also in school, work, and my day-to-day life.