The Learning Record: Waking Up and Growing Up
Sometimes we are on a path that does not have a map, milestones, or familiar landscape features. It can be difficult to know, in these deep woods, how far we have come, or where we are. We could even be going in circles. Fortunately, there are teachers and spiritual friends who carry the light. Teachers are trusted guides who know the terrain well; spiritual friends accompany us, encourage us, and cheer us, especially when we most need it.
Still, we can feel lost or uncertain about how our practice is unfolding and what is changing in our lives as a result of our journey. In adulthood, much of our learning is like this, whether in spiritual practice, therapy, social activism, travel—unstructured learning that can be difficult to track and evaluate.
For this reason, the Learning Record was developed, first for children in elementary school, and later expanded up to college-level learning and adult learning. I have adapted it to provide a way for adults to capture moments of experience, reflect on them, and take stock of their development from time to time, as a way of recognizing and appreciating this spiritual and psychological journey of waking up and growing up.
The Learning Record does not tell you what to do, it is simply a way to capture information about your own experience and learning as it unfolds in an organized format, and to help you make sense of that information. It can also be a valuable resource in your work with spiritual teachers.
How you use it, and how often, is up to you. You might make observations at any time—following a meditation session or throughout your everyday life. But observations are very brief—a snapshot of a moment, most helpful in showing trends over time or obstacles overcome, so we recommend at least two a week. As with Zazen, continuity of practice is most useful.
The Learning Record is organized in sections so that you can easily find the different aspects of your experience:
Part A provides some background at the start about your development up to this point. It also has a section for your aspirations and intentions for this particular experience (class, spiritual practice, therapy, and so on). It is completed at the very beginning of keeping the Learning Record.
Observations are very brief snapshots of your immediate experience, generally captured within 24 hours so that they are fresh. Just a sentence or two are all you need here; we provide a kind of framework as a guide, which highlights some aspects of experience, but feel free to follow your own observations. While each observation is fairly small, over time, like snapshots, they can reflect trends and change in our lives.
Samples of Work are longer reflections, or anything related to your learning process: poems, art, photos, lists, stories, and so on. You might describe a particular difficulty or obstacle you face in your practice, or questions that arise in the midst of it. Feel free to include anything that you have created that provides a view of your learning.
Part B provides a place to take stock of your learning so far, and so we usually suggest that you periodically review your original starting point and aspirations from Part A, your observations and samples of work, and reflect on your experience. You will probably find it helpful to use the dimensions of learning found at the end of the Learning Record as a support for this review. The second section of Part B is usually completed at the end of a class or training, as a way of summing up the whole experience. Again, you may use this section at any point.
Part C evaluates your experience in light of your aspirations and intentions. Like Part B, it is in two sections, one for ongoing evaluations in the middle of an activity, and another for summing your experiences up in the end. This is an opportunity to reflect on the value of what you have been learning, how it will serve you and others, how it has impacted your life so far.
The Learning Record Form: Below you will find a downloadable form in various formats that you can print or keep digitally. It may seem like a lot of material, but it is really just small pieces accumulated over time. Please be patient and don’t be discouraged if you feel resistant sometimes, forget to keep it up, have lapses, and so on. It will still be useful. This process and practice is like zazen. It can be uncomfortable, difficult, or even boring at first, and it’s challenging to be consistent, but ultimately it should feel nourishing and supportive of your life.
Many of my students and graduate students returned years later to tell me that they continue to keep a Learning Record, which has been the most valuable thing they learned in my class—how to track and analyze their own development. So I hope you too find the Learning Record a sturdy support for your own journey of waking up and growing up!