Daniel Kish has been blind since he was 13 months old. Both of his eyes had to be removed because he contracted a rare form of cancer. This devastating event was a life-changing experience for Daniel and his family. However, they did not let this become a negative life-changing event. Hs mother refused to treat him differently from other children. He had a ‘normal’ childhood and he learned about the world this way. So, he did all the things a sighted child would do such as riding bikes and climbing trees. Naturally this also involved crashing bikes and falling out of trees. Daniel appreciates the way he grew up. He didn’t necessarily enjoy getting hurt he but knows how important it is to be allowed to make mistakes. He also knows that learning from mistakes is vital. As he explains “Running into a pole is a drag, but never being allowed to run into a pole is a disaster.” Another amazing fact about Daniel is that he can actually see. He taught himself to navigate by clicking his tongue. He used the echoes that come back to him to see the world that is around him. This has been compared to the echo-location that bats use – this is why people call him the real-life batman. Scientists wanted to see what happens in his brain when he echo-locates. So they conducted brain scans on Daniel and other echo-locating blind people. The scientists found that the part of the brain that the blind echo-locators use is also the same part that sighted people use to see. Santani Teng studies brain plasticity and he thinks that the echo-locators’ sight is similar to the peripheral vision that sighted people have. As an example, he asks us to imagine walking down a street looking at the screen on our smart phones. While we are looking at the screen we are also aware of objects around us such as cars, people, trees and signs. However, could not read the sign. There are many stories about Daniel on the internet, including his TED talks and many videos on You Tube. My favourite is from a podcast called This American Life. (The podcast also has a transcript, so you can read as you listen). This fascinating podcast goes into much more detail about Daniel, his life and the issues around blindness and attitudes to blind people. Daniel now teaches his echo-location technique to other blind people around the world. His story is one that embodies many of our lifelong learning characteristics and he certainly has a growth mindset. He embraces and enjoys challenge: he has overcome great obstacles; he knows that success comes from effort and persistence; and he clearly has a thirst for life and knowledge. Also he seems to take great pleasure in helping others and enjoying their success. Andrew Bosson Instructor in the School of Languages at Sabanci University, Istanbul.
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Lifelong learning is a never-ending journey to find new dimensions. It involves more than training in school. Lifelong learning is all training activities of all life which improve skills, abilities, experiments, ways of thinking and capacities. Lifelong learning can help people to be informed about opportunities. People who are lifelong learners can identify and understand the skills and abilities and they can try to improve them. Also, lifelong learners have different life perspectives. They can join other people’s experiences and can be happy with other’s happiness. They accept life, they acquire knowledge they enjoy learning new things. They try to add something new to their life. And I think the most important thing is they try to do something beneficial for their life and humanity. They are not selfish people. Also, they use critical and creative thinking because the modern world, developing education system and business world need it. They do not accept every information which are provided to them. They share their own ideas and listen to others. Then, they decide to which is more useful. Tuana Ezgi MendirekThe author is learning English in The School of Languages at Sabancı University. How do you become one of the best at what you do? You may be skillful and intelligent but you also need to work extremely hard. Zlatan Ibrahimocvic is still one of the greatest football players at the age of 35. He is also extremely self-confident, you could even say arrogant but even he recognises what makes him successful: clear goals, hard work and persistence. Recently after scoring two goals to help Manchester United (possibly the world's greatest football team) win the 2017 English League cup final he shared the secret of his success: "I train hard. People who know me from the locker room know that I train very hard. I have an objective every season I go into. And to reach that objective I need to train hard and I need to suffer when I train; that is how I achieve what I achieve. I’m from the old school where they work hard and get what they get from doing the hard work, not like the new school where it is easy to get what you want.” Andrew BossonInstructor in the School of Languages at Sabanci University, Istanbul. As lifelong learners we believe that we can learn from all feedback but this is not as easy as it sounds. An article on the BBC website asks why even the best feedback can bring out the worst in us. Even though we may know that feedback is useful and can help us succeed it may also make us feel bad if we take it personally - it may affect our self-esteem. Some people will instinctively try to dismiss the feedback, for example by finding a problem with the person who gave the feedback. The article describes some interesting experiments which demonstrate these knee-jerk reactions. So as lifelong learners we want to get, and learn from, feedback. We also know that it is not easy even if the feedback is good and will help us. Fortunately, the article suggests how we may approach getting feedback. The authors refer to studies that show how we may approach getting feedback to help us in future tasks. This approach involves putting on 'emotional armour' to protect ourselves. Firstly, we can spend some time considering the positive traits we value in ourselves and when we have used them successfully in the past. Secondly, we can be positive about seeking feedback. We can actually choose to get feedback - telling ourselves that we want to get feedback can actually help us to take the feedback more positively. In fact, the more we put into the process ourselves the more we are likely to benefit from it. Andrew BossonInstructor in the School of Languages at Sabancı University, Istanbul. |