A Learner’s Voyage: My Moon Exploration in 2009

My childhood experience in school was fragmented from my out of school experience where I lived in rural China. School subject matters were reduced to bits and pieces. I excelled in this artificial symbolic world. Progressing from preschool to graduate school, I trained to teach in that world, and gained the opportunity to study at Harvard. My first course there was with Eleanor Duckworth. To put students in close contact with subject matter, and to listen to learners explain what they think, Duckworth's course creates space where learners develop direct relationship with subject matter. Throughout the semester, we record the moon as we observe it, share observations, and discuss questions. In contrast with my prior schooling, we learners are responsible for following our emerging curiosities. Narrating from my moon study in that course, I chronicle how I came to grasp what it means to learn through truly experiencing exploratory learning. Reentering my moon study in researching for this paper became a search for what previous years of my schooling had taken away from me: confidence and dignity as a learner.