Embracing Learning and Challenging Academic Norms
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What's up everybody? Welcome to our
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show about motivation and being yourself. That's right. What does R O L?
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Reach out for loads show about motivation and love being yourself being yourself, how do you be yourself?
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Let's find out.
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And I didn't really like the thought of that, because I felt like, you know, I don't have the power to change this, or I don't have the ability to make these decisions. Because I don't have like the proper tools. I didn't have the proper tools to make some stuff happen. So what I decided to do to combat that instead of be upset and just stick with whatever I can do. And just like you sometimes we do just accept things for what they are, the worst thing we can ever do in life is just give up and comply with literally anything we're told, right? Because look up people in history, they have made a huge difference for our lives today to turn the world into what it is now. And I'm not saying Oh, yeah, my life's great, because, you know, I'm not saying that I'm saying that. Technology has advanced, scientists have spent their whole lives to figure out how to make technology work more efficient, more efficiently, make make it more effective, yes, it could be used for evil. Yes, I'm not saying it's not going to Yeah, I'm just saying it exists. And we are, we have advanced as a society because of certain sacrifices that people in the past have made. That's one of my favorite things about science. And like scientists in general, even though I'm like, I've never been like a math and science person, I've always been like a, like a social science kind of person, or like a, you know, reading and writing kind of person if you're just going to go by like school subjects. But um, I always enjoy when I hear how, like, the specific and like niche areas and questions and like, for lack of a better term, like experiments, I find it fascinating the fact that like, you can study field of study, you can become a genuine like, expert in that and right, and you have specialty knowledge that like, very few others would just know, and then even, like, be able to learn or access. Like I'm, I'm a big proponent of like, free and open access to like, any and all educational material, right? I don't see why. Like, it really frustrates me and I know, it frustrates a lot of academics
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who are like, like, to your point, who like when they're in their fields of study, whatever it is,
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they're, you know, they're, they're looking at it from like, a, like a more holistic like positivist, like, you know, giving back to society being part of like, you know, doing better for, for everyone around them. And, and they get really upset because, like, so much of like, their, their their work, or their field of study or knowledge is like, behind paywalls or like gate captain, I kind of I wish, I wish, like all of academia was more like a was more like a public library. I understand that. Yeah, I could definitely see that. And going back to your point about the whole, like, what the more we learn, the more we see, also when you're learning but the great thing about person who's specializing in anything, is that there's always more to learn. Yeah, that's true. And ever stop learning. Yeah, if anyone ever says and I don't, I don't know, anyone who would say this. So like, maybe I just keep good company or something. But like if I, if I ever hear someone like being like, pretty serious about like, being negative on learning, or thinking that there's like an end to learning, like if someone graduates high school, and they're just like, I know, anything, anything and everything I ever need to know, and they're just like, not curious about, like the world around them, or they don't take the time to, to just like, I don't know, I can't even put it into words because I can't imagine not being curious about knowledge. I liked that you brought up high school because I was actually going to mention earlier that when we're in high school where we're not specializing in a no, no, they actually make us learn all different little bit everything subject Yeah, right. And then when we get older, that's when we start to focus in and figure out what we want to do. And sometimes it takes us a lot longer than we'd like to figure that out specifically, yeah, but honestly my experience learning so much different like a diverse background. Yeah, as you've been in school for
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Ever, like have multiple degrees at this point because you write up your you like get into a program or a subject and you just kind of like dive in headfirst and just keep learning, you know, right. And my experience with that I've learned that it's actually it grows you as a person. Yeah, no, it does. And the reason why in high school because I was thinking about this the other day, I was like, in high school, we are learning every topic and I'm like, am I still in high school technically, with my with my own mind, because I'm like, I feel like, because when I was in high school, I actually struggled with picking one thing. I don't like any prize at all. I was like, oh, man, I really like everything. Everything. Yeah, no, I'm like that, too. I'm like that too. Except for like math. I don't want to know, I liked math, too. I can't I was never good at math. And it just kind of like, seeing how the equations get to be after like, Algebra Two, I was just like, I can't Oh, no, yeah, it gets, it's really hard. It just, my brain just doesn't. Our brain doesn't work with numbers very well, as much as it works with right. Well, I'm with you on that. When it comes to specializing in it like, like you were saying that it takes a very unique person. Yeah. Specialized. And I have all the I have all the respect in the world for people that do like the hard analytic science like that, because it's, it's not that I don't see I never, I never don't see its importance or, or its usefulness or like, why it matters. But some stuff is just very
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dense to me to like, get into like,
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not near easily, like as accessible, or, like, easy to understand, unless I'm really coming in at like the ground floor. But it can be hard to do that sometimes the thing I look up to for those people that specialize anything as I really look up to them, and they inspire me, because they actually love what they're doing. Yeah, I love that. I wake up seeing people in their passions, right? Exactly. They wake up every single day and they're just like, I love what I'm doing every single day. I'm like, really oh my gosh, I love that's like Loki how I feel about my job not gonna lie. I was talking to I was talking to, to Jason here at the station. For those listening. Students station, you probably know, you've been around the radio station, you know who Jason Beatty is? Shout out Jason. In the in the midst of our conversation, I had said, man I just really enjoy. I really like coming into, I don't want to I don't want this to suddenly come off like a like, Oh, that's a whole negative. But like, I'm also very much like anti work. Like if work is pointless or draining or could be like, made, like, automate the stuff nobody wants to do. Right. So everyone can do like the creatives, there's people who love the raw repetitious routine of things. Yeah, exactly. And I love that to an extent, like when it comes to my own special interests, I'm all about that. But I can't that doesn't apply to everything I could possibly do. Because some stuff that doesn't hold my attention. That's why it's so it's when when I said uniques person specializing in a specific exact subjects because everybody's unique, and everybody's going to be finding passion and love and whatever they're doing. And it is making a difference in the world. Right? Because people are following these rules, like they are, they are make building their whole life around that. And they're building the lives of their children and lead life. So there's children's children around right through it, expect it to be a good society. But yeah, like, like, there's always that black and white. And those issues that occur that, you know, for the minority, that just don't work out for us just don't until it becomes a majority problem. Usually, they're overlooked. And no one really like, well, people do care, but like, you know, the big just because just because there's people out there who care doesn't mean they're in the positions of power and authority to like, do anything with the matter at hand. Right? And, you know, sometimes they say, you know, opinions change. But, you know,
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the psychology behind it, though, is that the older you get, the less likely you're going to change your opinion on anything. Yeah, that's, that has to do that has to do with chemistry, chemistry and like, are a lot of other things. Our brains are becoming like, rigid as we age, if we don't continue if we don't continuously learn. Like I can see Yeah, it has to do with neural pathways. Yep. So that's the same it's the same way that like when we're talking about our own, like behavior sleep, we talk about mental health, like literally as part of the show, like by default, so like as as we would help as like I would help myself with my my mental and emotional health by like realizing that my neural pathways might kind of like
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cause me to default into certain thought patterns, behavior patterns, what have you, but we can change them over time, even if they do come from like, kind of
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air quotes here like core memories or, or core parenting learning, whatever. But we can even change those over time with with measured study with, like self love techniques called like positive like healthy coping takes time. It takes time. It takes time, same way that you build the time it took to build
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and get you my life experience right this is what I know from my whole life okay, well, we can change it you just have to one first acknowledge that the fact that you know that it has happened yeah, you have made that a thing that you this is a thing, right this exists this is a pattern yeah exact behavior, this is a thought. And I was I was bringing up the whole the whole neural pathway thing in the in the plasticity to plasticity of the brain. So as we get older, what helps us my understanding what helps us continue to kind of like, I guess for, like, layman's terms, like keep an open mind, right and not get like, stuck in like, there's old like, the, like black and white thinking is a obviously like, continuing to learn. But I think also is kind of having like, like a, like a core concept in in yourself. Like, where are you rooted in your own, like values? And I know for me, one of mine is actually it comes from comes from Barbie for me to be inspired by music. What? That all I know is that I don't know nothing. Wesley's the most music on the most I can't, I can't play anything. But I've got a voice and I sometimes write lyrics. You got a voice? I have a voice I can I speak?
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Yeah, no, that's, I bet you bet you're gonna see oh, no, no, no. I could but like, not with. I'm the kind of person that like, I can't sing. Well, the side tangent. I can't. I don't feel like I'm a very good singer. If I don't have like the music. Oh, okay. Yeah, otherwise, I can't I can't figure out where I need. Like my starting point. You know, you know, I used to think that everybody would be able to just naturally like they all naturally heard, but then you didn't know what tone deafness was and everything. Yeah, I was like, what? Yeah, what do you mean, you guys don't hear music in your head? What do you what do you mean, you? You're like, what's tone? Deaf? I don't know. Some people have. It's so crazy. Because growing up I've always had like, every voice slash music slash, like, it's never quiet in my head. And I know you told me this. Yeah, you're the same way. Yeah, I was like, like, some of my friends have no thoughts. No word, but they don't.
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They don't have what's the way they don't have a, like inner voice? Yeah, that's I was a very nice.
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I don't know if that's nice. I don't know. It can be lonely.
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Keep me company, man. Like, even if they're not good thoughts, at least I'm gonna like genuinely thought everyone had that inner voice. Or I wonder if it's because and this is just like a weird hypothetical thing I've created in my mind. This is a great question. For someone who specializes in this field. As I'm saying, like, there's always a spark. There's always a specialty, like a specialist out there. That is so excited. If they get asked like, I don't wanna say the right questions, but like, the stuff in their focus. Yeah, that's true. And we could sit here talking about hypotheticals like, Yeah, interesting. Like, for a long time. It's all we can do when we're talking about abstract concepts already. I was thinking yeah, exactly. Yeah, the hypothetical. The abstract is an abstract concept. Okay. I don't even know if this is an abstract concept. But you know, how there's twins and then like, sometimes other, like, when, when you're in the belly or in the womb, and then you're just like, growing and there's another person growing and same time sometimes, like, they get overpowered by the other. Oh, like one eats the other? Yeah, or sometimes? I don't know if I mean, that's always freezing. It's always the freezing like one eats the other one. But like, I've always wondered if, like, when you do have like people who are schizo for example, were they supposed to? Oh, I've always I've always on that's an interesting thought. We could have someone maybe like go because I guess a specialist.
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Here's the see that's us being like at UNLV I feel like I feel like somehow somewhere there's someone here with no like, a deep connection to like someone who like can answer that question. Who knows schizophrenia or like knows like mental mental health disorders and stuff? Yeah, mental health is like constantly people just constantly learning more and more about it and they're trying to link it to science to the science of biological science. Yeah. And it should I believe it should be connected to the biological sciences because the brain so complex, a body is so complex. Yeah, the whole body is extremely complex. And there's so much physical that affects the mental and mental that affects the physical Yeah, like it's crazy. Like I don't know how but
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I don't even remember how old I was. But I was definitely like, probably in teenage years if not like approaching college age. Before it really like I understood that like, me dealing with like anxiety and depression since I was like a little kid. I never thought about it having like physical manifestations.
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I never thought about having like adverse health effects. Right minds like the opposite. Like, I never thought that the mental because growing up my family wasn't talking about mental stuff, like mental health as much as be like, Oh, if you're ill, it's because you're physically ill, right. Oh, right. And you know, mental health wasn't really talked about back then either it's much more widely talked about, like it's only really become I don't want to say popular but a common, which is great widely, extremely, like a more widely like accepted conversation right in the last maybe 20 years like not even 20 Like, and 10. Let's think about all those people who sacrificed in order to get us to this point, because there was a lot of people fighting, like fighting off the these even just fighting off ideas. It's like, why are you fighting ideas like this is this is just like, why do we fight ideas? And it's because are incompatible with the ones we currently hold? Don't want to be wrong? Exactly. I I will never I mean, I get why people that oh my god, my ego is protecting me from like the quote unquote harm or shame or guilt of like, I was wrong, or I had I did something with the wrong information or whatever is right. But it's like, it's crazy to me, again, being grown now, I suppose at 29 to think that people would get hang up would get hung up on like, oh my god, I was wrong. And like, I'm such a like a bad person. No, or like, wherever it can go. I love when police can accept that they're that they're wrong. Yeah, because everyone gets everyone's wrong. I honestly love being wrong. Because that's something in something. Because typically if it comes up in a conversation, like now, and someone knows that I can learn something right. And I love learning. I don't know. Yes. It's crazy to me that I just grew up watching a lot of PBS when I was a kid that's like, I don't know. Why do you not like learning? It's crazy to me the equality of ability to learn. I was thinking I was like, Yeah, I got degrees. This, you know, so funny. I was thinking about this right before the podcast, I was thinking, yeah, got degrees. But I mean, if it's not equality equal for everybody's opportunities, not equal to get a certain degree, it's yeah, oh, do you even be in your position to get the degree? Yeah, like stuff, like, you know, extra degree, you don't need to have a degree to know certain information. It's a readily available. Like, I have a degree in Journalism and Media Studies. And that means that I have like, a broad knowledge of stuff related to radio and print and online media. But then also, in at least, I don't know if it's changed, but I know that when I was getting my degree here, the way that this program worked was, you know, you have your normal track of like, here's your classes, here's your focus. But then you have an outside area. Right. So that's, that's, you're still in the same college that has other degree fields. Right? Exactly. Just go and get an amount of credits in these in whatever other
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subjects you want, as long as they're within the college. So in college or Urban Affairs here.
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Besides journalism, you know, we have a criminal justice we have, like, I think, sociology as well, we have social work. We have like counseling. And so I,
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I took an interest in like, in counseling and like, basically everything to do with like therapy, right? Because when I was in college, I was just starting to realize I'm like, because I was I was in therapy at the time. And I was like, Man, I want to know, as much as I can, like,
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what's wrong with me? Like, I want to figure out like, what's going on? Like, why do I that is, that's the best. That's the best motivator right there. Yeah, once you get it.
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That's actually funny. It's really funny. No, I'm saying like, when you get that thought of, I want to know this. You know, that's, that's the best time to get to delve in like, in that moment, just go delve in like, in that moment, if you could in to that to that topic.
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I'm realizing how much I would die for our, like, our grading and evaluation systems to change, right? Because, like, it's,
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at least for me,
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I have been traumatized by the expectations of like achievement and success with women. I can attest to that. Yeah, like when I was like, think about it when I was a kid. I was told my mom told me
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anything lower, anything besides A's and B's is unacceptable. And I was like, all right, but like I also knew what that grading scale was, you know, and just excellent above average, average below average fail like just
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So that's that's the range. And it's like, everything was hinged on getting those good grades, I know it extrapolates out to like, good GPA, get into college during college, if you don't pass classes, then you have to retake them. But like, the thing is, is when you hold the
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like the the the consequences based punishment based I call it the or else, you know, the empty threat like the or else
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of, of achieving and doing well in academic senses or in any sense. It then takes the impetus off of isn't learning awesome. And it becomes I need to know this or else like my life is in jeopardy, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's like it takes because we have to worry about the what ifs of pass fail, and it gets in the way of like, what when we're when we're stressed, when we're anxious when it becomes when it feels like Do or Die kind of stuff in our heads, it, it actively harms our ability to learn, it gets in our own way to do the thing that we want to do, because like, Who wouldn't want to do well, when learning in school and you know, that kind of thing that like sense. But then it just, you know, it just it just, well kind of unravels the whole the whole point of it all. i That's awesome. All my point, I would love if we had, I don't know what it would look like. So I apologize for bringing this subject at the table and then not having like an idea. But
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well, I just I would just want something a little bit less. Like, just don't teach to the test, like Teach for the sake of learning and knowledge and find find better ways to evaluate students with a focus of Do you know what you need to know? Versus did you get the grade that
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either pushes you forward or gets schools funding? You know what I mean? Like, okay, so here's, I got, like, because you said that, why do we need these tests, you're like, it will alter my ability to learn, right? Although part of the part of like, do or die on, like, on on grades, because like a lot of a lot of, at least in my experience, a lot of like learning, especially once you hit like middle school, high school is kind of like, people act like you have one shot. And if you've and if you fail at it, then you don't get to retry. And I think I think that might be kind of what I'm getting at. Sometimes people will go through life issues, and it will, it will not allow them because like, yeah, you can make a sacrifice to learn something. But you can't sacrifice if it's your health, or you can't sacrifice if it's your livelihood, basic right, or a family member, you know, something happening to someone that you truly care about you. You wouldn't want to sacrifice your time to study if something extreme like that has happened. Yeah, live like if life is happening in that moment. Yeah, that's true. However, it does not alter your learning. At halter. Did I even say the word
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is an altar? No, I think you mean hamper, like hamper your umbrella? Yeah, it doesn't doesn't affect your learning. It just affects your passion, will know what I'm saying about the whole, like, when you're focused on, on the success of if, if you're like, if in the back of your mind, when you're like trying to do a write a paper do a project, something that's like, this grade is huge. Oh my god, I can't like what if like the anxiety and stuff like that is like when you're so focused on the possibility of,
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of like, I could fail, and I may not have a second chance that affects the way that your brain actually like, right, retains that you are
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not effectively, effectively. No, I disagree. How can we how can you? Hold on hold on one second, how can you learn effectively if you're under duress, okay. So duress will like, you know, how we were talking about getting comfortable when you're comfortable in a certain situation, you're not going to want to get out of that situation? Yeah. I mean, you're like, it sounds like you're kind of equating comfort as a bad thing. No, no, I'm saying comfort. It's a good thing. We all do it. We all get comfortable. But the thing is that once you get comfortable with something, you end up not wanting to change whatever you're you're doing right in your comfortability, right? So in order for you to get out of that mentality, you're gonna need that stress, no matter what that stress needs to exist. Oh, well, you gotta go like a stressor is a motivator? Yeah. And there's extreme situations with an anxiety disorder.
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are like I can't function with extreme stress very well so yeah if it's too extreme to where it's affecting your your health conditions then you're gonna need to step back a little bit and we're gonna need to like take a look at those decisions that you're that you're making. Try to like maybe like you say you tell me all the time but it's gonna take some stuff off of your plate yes I'm worried about heavily no I can handle this like I know what I can handle but sometimes you know you're not gonna know what you can handle and what you can't you don't know until you try you want to go check out with So yeah, we're getting we're getting looked at Hey everybody what's going on? I can't hear you so
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I don't know if you have something to do. I don't know. But anyways, guys keep learning out there. Don't stress yourselves too much. This can be good. We'll talk about comfortability next time. I'm curious about the comfortability thing because like, I feel like somehow you're kind of crossing it with being complacent. And I'm not sure quite yet but I'm curious to get a conversation going. Yeah. All right, guys. See you guys later. Let's get out of here. I feel like a fish in a fishbowl Bye.
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Thanks for watching rfl reaching out for love with baz mama.
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