A pilgrimage

The suns shines brightly today through a hazy film of clouds upon the sky. The day promises to be one of the warmest we've had this year, though it only approaching lunch time as yet. Today is reading day at the college, the day before final exams begin. The various places where people frequent to study and write papers have already begun to fill. So begins another final exam period at Ursinus.

Last night I did a pilgrimage. Not a serious one mind you, or one that went particularly far, but it is a fun exercise that seems to work well at the college. The pilgrimage is essentially a method of finishing a large amount of reading while simultaneously getting some exercise and keeping things interesting. You start in one builing on campus, read for a while, then get up and walk to some other place on campus. Do it right, and you couild end up doing a little reading in every academic building on campus, assuming they are open.

I first completed a first pilgrimage while reading Frankenstein for a history course last semester. I read a chapter in dorm, then went to the fit center, the biology building, the math building, the library, the music building, the history building, and finally back to dorm. It was really great. Moving from place to place kept the surroundings different, allowed me to walk periodically, and brought me into contact with a whole bunch of people. The regular interval provided time for reflection on what I was reading, and the unique surroundings meant I began associating individual chapters with specific locations on campus, aiding memory. In short, going on a pilgrimage proved both fun and educational, and helped me finish a copious amount of reading.

Last night's piligrimage proved similar to the first. I was reading a book on Chinese factory workers, and I had to finish the book so I could answer some questions on a worksheet. As the night progressed and I became quite tired, the thought came to mind that perhaps a pilgrimage was just what I needed to wake up a little and finish the reading. And so it proved the case.

It is often said by some that one should try to turn one's work into play. As they point out, a child can play all day and not feel tired, yet give him or a her an assignment they don't like or understand, and barely 10 minutes are required to render them exhausted and frustrated. I really like the idea of turning work into play, but I could never quite figure out how to do it. The pilgrimage concept has proved to me that such shifts in appraisal are possible, and can even prove beneficial for learning. Taking a difficult assignment and turning it into a game can make the task easier, more fun, and interesting.

I frequently heard as a youngster that school was a game that people played to get good grades by a combination of study, sucking up, and playing one's cards right in order to get ahead of the class. The idea troubled me, and I decided not to play even as others did so to great effect through high school. Not playing the game, I imagined school as a place of learning and new understanding.

Yet that didn't last long. Learning was nice when it came easy, but the more complicated the concepts and ideas became, the less able I seemed to rally myself to acquire the knowledge through study. A new method seemed appropriate, but it took a while to realize. Finally, the idea appeared; turn learning into a game. Not a game of grades and sucking up to teachers and making very little seem like very much. Rather, why not make work a time for play. After all, people who play games become intimately familar with the rules, concepts, and central ideas of those games. Could the same be true with skills and tasks odiously tied to the traditionally-anti-fun conception of formal education?

As it turns out, perhaps it can. I took an assignment I had--read 75 pages--and turned it into an opportunity to visit all the major buildings on campus. It required a little planning and a good bit of walking. You had to read a passage or a chapter, then think about it as you travelled to the next building. It took almost two hours to accomplish, but it was great fun, and I retained so much of what I had read. I had turned hard work into fun play, and it was awesome. Try it sometime :)

Happy Reading Day!