The Will to Learn

 

                                            (photo: sunstar.com.ph)

Padajon! This was overheard as someone encouraged a student to endure the challenges encountered with the new learning modality. You see, a lot of the learners are given modules and worksheets which require them to read. Yet, reading is a least favorite among the learners. People who are even using social media sites skip those posts with lengthy words. They skip such blogs and proceed to a more visual and entertaining content.

People consume a lot of entertainment these days. The media platforms provide such to the point that hilarious posts and vlogs are the viral ones compared to the more serious and academic posts.

Phil (2017) posits: I think some people just aren't "built" to enjoy the written word as much as readers do. How long does it take you to read an average book? Let's say 10 hours. In that time someone else could watch 5 or 6 movies or hockey games or a whole season of Game of Thrones or play Call of Duty or just go talk with friends for 10 hours and they would get more pleasure than if they read the same book as you did. There's nothing wrong with them; we're all just different.

This is consistent to the theory of Multiple Intelligences of Howard Gardner. In his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, he suggested that all people have different kinds of "intelligences." In order to capture the full range of abilities and talents that people possess, Gardner theorizes that people do not have just an intellectual capacity, but have many kinds of intelligence, including musical, interpersonal, spatial-visual, and linguistic intelligences.

Differing intelligences require varied preferences. Probably, most of the learners now are not inclined to have linguistic intelligence.

According to Heick (2019), students are increasingly seeking briefer, more visual, social, and dynamic media. Because not only are these media forms effortlessly entertaining, they rarely require meaningful investment of themselves. And it is this kind of connection that makes reading–or any other media consumption for that matter–feel alive and vibrant and whole. When readers are younger, there is a natural ‘give’ between the reader and the text, their imaginations still raw and green and alive. But as readers grow older, there is less give–and more need for texts to be contextualized differently.

(But), data from Learner Enrollment and Survey Form (LESF) showed that 8.8 million parents preferred modular, over the 3.9 million who voted for blended learning, which is a combination of different modalities: module, television and radio or radio with online. Parents who opted for online only numbered 3.8 million (Ciriaco, 2020).

Since modular learning is the preferred modality, it is now time to adapt. It is expected that difficulties and challenges will be encountered since this is a novel delivery of lessons. Intelligent WILL must be embraced by both the parents and the learners.

Modern psychologists, according to Graeme (2011) often use the word volition in preference to “Will”. Volition is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action. It is defined as purposive striving, and is one of the primary human psychological functions (the others being affection [affect or feeling], motivation [goals and expectations] and cognition [thinking]).

The author continued that volitional processes can be applied consciously, and they can be automatized as habits over time. Most modern conceptions of volition address it as a process of action control that becomes automatized.

Within Gary Kielhofner’s “Model of Human Occupation” volition is one of the three sub-systems that act on human behavior. Within this model volition considers a person’s values, interests and beliefs about self-efficacy and personal capacity.

In this case, the cliché “If there’s a will, there’s a way” can be applied.

If modular learning is the most feasible way to continue learning, parents and learners must WILL themselves to gain a lot from it and allow the processes to hone their capacities NOT to curtail their mental development. Later, if this will become part of the norm, we will see the silver linings on the seemingly dark clouds.

Padajon!