Prompt: Share a story about your best learning experience (could be a formal course or something more personal). Why did you enjoy it?
I am lucky that I have had many positive learning experiences, as I believe this is what led me to choose teaching as a career. However; one learning experience always comes to mind as a favourite, which was learning how to ski the second time. When I was about 6 years old I attempted skiing for about a season, but I ended up having a terrible fall that turned me away from trying skiing again for years.
It wasn’t until I was 13 that I wanted to try skiing again. I lived in a town about 30mins from a beautiful ski hill, so I saw how much fun people had spent their weekends there. I decided I wanted to face my fears and I begged my family to help me try it. So that year for Christmas, my sister, my mom, and I all took a skiing camp together. It was such a fun way to learn the sport again. I was the only one of us three who continued to stick with it after this camp, but we all had so much fun together. This experience was such a positive, and safe learning environment.
I was not asked, pushed or pressured to learn how to ski from anyone other than myself-it was something I was doing for me, I was internally motivated. Just like the post Motivation and Learning states “learners who are motivated will engage and persist on a task.”
Another part of this experience that was so great for me was how I was able to take the fear that made me quit, and overcome it and I turned skiing into one of my favourite hobbies. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and found fulfillment and success. This connects to another quote in the motivation and learning post for me “learners have to sometimes undo old understandings when confronted with new information. Unlearning is the process of reconciling new information with prior knowledge.”
I was for sure lucky as I found a natural level of comfort while skiing, and I enjoyed my teacher. As this further encouraged me to private and develop on my own time. Following through on a goal made this experience so fun, and I hope that I can have more learning experiences like this in the future as well as create similar experiences for others.
I am so grateful that I wanted to try skiing again, as it has impacted my life so positively and I could not imagine my life without it.

Cheers!

Morgan