I know all 9 of my readers are waiting with baited breath for a report on what I learned from my class today regarding their assignment to read with new eyes. I am too! Out of 20 students, 3 admitted to actually doing the assignment, 3 were not there on Wednesday and most acted as if they couldn't recall the instructions!!! Was I surprised? No. Was I disappointed? No. Why not? Well, as the parable says, you can lead a horse to water . . .
Learning is a personal trait. Even today as I provided, in my terms, a tantalizing analysis of Jn 5:31-47 and the critical relationship of several of the points to previous elements of the Gospel account, they didn't really learn. If anyone learned, it was I. By teaching the elements, I was reinforcing my own previous learning. Some took notes through pencil or iPad. My words may come back to haunt me in the future, as they have in the past. But I am not certain that any of them learned in the 50 minutes I engaged with them. I can hope, I can pray, I can even anticipate that someone did. But only they can indicate that they learned by processing change in their thinking, believing, and acting.
So here is to learning. May we all take it to heart!
What is learning, exactly? If your words come back to haunt you, isn't that learning of a sort? What if something you emphasized one day collided (as in the post above) with something else you said another day, and then the light turns on? Didn't they learn on the first day as well as the second?
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