What Makes Me Journal

I’ve been in three of Dr. Fishback’s classes. She will probably be one of the more influential professors throughout this Ph.D. journey. All of her classes have been intriguing and inspiring, and compared to the other professors, she’s incredibly empowering in her methods. She doesn’t care about form or format as much as she enjoys allowing her students to explore their areas of interest within the boundaries of her class. 

For example, when I took learning and the brain from her, I was allowed to go do all sorts of work on how virtual reality affects the adult brain. How are memories made in adult brains in VR compared to non-VR training opportunities? In this class, Adult Development and Adult Learning, the area she’s allowing me to explore is how VR can aid with the improvement or advancement of self-efficacy and empowerment. So, like I said, there’s a lot of academic freedom. 

What’s funny about this is that in each of her classes she had sponsored, advocated, and sometimes graded “learning journals” like this one. I’ve done them of course, but I wasn’t going to for this class because I didn’t get much out of the past exercises. 

What did it take for me to get “serious” about learning journals? (I know, I’m only on the third day)

What it took was this TraDoc manual on Red Teaming. That damn manual spoke to me. Why? Maybe I have a procedural-oriented mind. That sucker is certainly procedural (like all military manuals). I look at my career and I see that a lot of my life and career have been built around procedures. Writing technical manuals and safety manuals is definitely procedural. Writing CRM training, that too is procedural. Then I was in construction, business, and project management. Didn't work out. Then back to technical documentation. That didn’t work out either, but not because of me like the construction thing was all on me, but because the business went under. Then back to more procedural tasks . . . Business analysis . . . Training . . . Career development, etc etc. Obviously, the procedure aspect appeals to me. 

I’m really enjoying listening to Legends of the 75th right now. And I hear from the CSM’s and officers who were in Regiment. Are they self-authored? Have they gone through this Red Teaming exercise? I bet some of them have. Even badass warfighters need to expand their minds right? 

What I find so funny is that it wasn’t Dr. Fishback’s advocacy that helped me start working on this learning journal to help with my self-awareness, and my self-authorship, instead it was an implied order from a military journal that spoke to me most. Somehow it hit me in that right spot to make me open to it. Funny how we glom onto those things that we listen to most.