The New Social Worker Vol. 20, No. 2, Spring 2013 | Page 8

Field Placement

I

What I Have Learned About Learning
by Jeff Baxter

am currently in my first year of a
master’s program in social work that
is tailored to working professionals.
While reflecting on what I have gained
from the program thus far, I came to
one main conclusion: the importance
of practical experience is paramount in
this field. Sure I have gained knowledge
about social work practice, about problems in people and in society and how
they intersect. But I believe the most
important lesson I have actually learned
is more about the process of learning
than the actual material and knowledge
gained. I have come to appreciate the
truly significant synergistic result of
combining education and real-life experience. There really is no substituting the
quality of learning that is achieved by
actually being immersed in the realities
of the work being studied.

This likely applies to all fields of
work, but to me becomes more important when working in a helping profession that involves the panoptical complexities and responsibilities of working
with human beings, as a human being.
One of the most influential books I
have read is Carl Rogers’ On Becoming A
Person. In this book, he said, “The only
learning which significantly influences
behavior is self-discovered, self-appropriated learning.” The more I work and
learn in this field, the more I agree.

Before I began to work in the field
of mental health and addictions, I was
simply a student—and a naïve one at
that. I had feebly established opinions,
goals, and core beliefs. I knew I wanted
to make a difference in the world and
not just be a corporate slave willing to
sacrifice my morals to compete for dollars in the rat race. I pictured myself accomplishing this as a brave police officer.
At the time, I had rigid beliefs. I thought
things were either right or wrong, there
were problems and solutions, things
were black and white—and I wanted to
be part of the solution. However, as I
began my program in criminology and
psychology at the University of Ottawa,
I began to find out that things were a bit
more complicated than that. My eyes began to open. I heard that volunteer work

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The New Social Worker

was good on the résumé for applying to
be a police officer, so in my third year of
university, I began to volunteer as a tutor
for homeless people at the Sheppards for
Good Hope Mission in downtown Ottawa. My eyes blew wide open, and now
I can’t seem to close them. These were
not the stupid, lazy, ignorant people I
had previously envisioned them to be.
In fact, in my mind they never were
people—they were fixtures of an illusionary society that represented little more
than a point of social comparison. But
there, in the shelter, I was meeting Terry
the schizophrenic Inuit trying to learn
grade seven math and Rudy the hopelessly destitute alcoholic. I was getting
to know
them, un- There really is no
derstand- substituting the
ing who
quality of learning
they were
and where that is achieved
they came by actually being
from. Sud- immersed in the
denly, and
realities of the work
ever since,
being studied.
when I
read the
word homeless, I don’t see eight letters
forming a word with no meaning; I can
picture people, and it means a lot.

As I finished my undergraduate
degree, I remained aware of the importance of experience going along with my
education. I endeavored to volunteer at a
mental health hospital and as a research
assistant, and then worked part time
at an addiction treatment center. The
more I worked in this field, the more I
realized how little I actually knew, how
much more there was to learn, and how
much I wanted to learn it. Dealing with
people who are in crisis is a great way to
motivate the pursuit of knowledge.

When I began working in mental health, I was thrust into a world of
people who were desperate, hopeless,
and confused. Each day of work filled my
mind with endless questions: Did I help
that person? How can I be more efficient? How
can I be more effective? How can the system be
improved? What therapeutic intervention is
best? How did they come to be this way?

Spring 2013

I was finding that my undergraduate degree had provided me with a vast
array of general knowledge, and I was
able to apply a lot of it to the work I was
doing. However this general knowledge
was often of little assistance to the person
in tears of desperation sitting in my office
telling me a story and seeking resolution.
So I eventually accepted the fact that my
undergraduate education, while beneficial, also left me limited in my abilities.

My re-education began with working directly with individuals, as part of a
professional team, and part of the system
as a whole. I have heard many clients tell
me their stories, many of them terrible
and traumatic. At first they were shocking, interesting, and depressing. I would
be completely mentally and emotionally
drained after a long day of interviews
with clients. Eventually, I got to a place
where the stories started to repeat themselves and I became acclimated. I began
to appreciate that while individuals are
all unique, their problems typically carry
commonality. The more work experience I had, the more I began to find connections between the things I was seeing
and the things I had learned. However, I
was also finding out that there was much
more for me to learn. It was at this point
that I became charged with motivation
to take every opportunity to further my
education so I could alleviate my feeling
of helplessness and be a more active
and effective contributor to the field of
mental health to help these ??????????($)$??????????????????????????????????????????????????????)?????????????????????$???????????)????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????)%????????????????????????????????)???????????????????????????????)??????????????????????????????)?????????????%??????????????????????)?????????????????????????????%????)??????????????q??????????????????)???????????????????????????????????????t($)!???????????????????????????????????????????????????????)?????????Q?????????????????????????)???????????????????????????????((0