The more teaching that I do the more fascinated I become with the entire process of learning and reflection. During the course of studying for a Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Education I had cause to start to look critically at some educational literature surrounding how learners learn and the article that follows is a reflection of my own ‘learning journey’ with reference to the literature I discovered during my studies.1
As a young child my mother nicknamed me ‘Little Miss Why’ because I was never satisfied with a simple answer and was always seeking deeper knowledge. At primary school I was a keen participant,2 although I am aware now that behaviourism was obviously playing a part in my development as I responded to positive and negative reinforcement.3 At a pre-operational level my education was always very learner-centred and I can remember finding it quite difficult to move into a primary school environment where I was unable to dictate any of my learning goals. I found the personal model4 was often favoured by teachers, which often created difficulties when the teacher could not accept that I might have different values or needs. I remember a particular incident in primary school where a teacher insisted that we should all have handwriting identical to hers and spent many days getting us to relearn the way we shaped our letters to be identical to hers in spite of the fact that at 10 …